WxWatcher007

It really does look like a delayed peak, and maybe one that’s higher end with CV season heating up? Although weaker, the genesis signal in the Gulf still looks pretty robust. Definitely worth watching. I’m still way off my peak season forecast but some of each category will be added to the board soon. Peak Season Forecast (Aug 20-Oct 20) Named Storms: 15 (6) Hurricanes: 10 (3) Major Hurricanes: 5 (1) Francine (H), Gordon, Helene (MH), Isaac (H), Joyce, Kirk

I think two of the other challenges are that 1) we’re seeing events that are outside of our frame of reference. How do you adequately communicate the worst case scenario when a region has literally seen anything close into it? Worst on record doesn’t cut it when the impacts are almost biblical or an order of magnitude worse than the worst. 2) I think media/NHC really need to reconsider how TCs and impacts get categorized. I think the NHC has done tremendous work over the years talking more about hydro impacts, but categorizing TCs based strictly on winds seems increasingly inadequate given what we’re seeing even with non-hurricanes. Much of the media is still too focused on wind and coastal impacts imo. Not all to be sure, but many.

What a monster Camille was. Completed an ERC just offshore and quickly reintensified to 175mph/900mb. Just unreal. All of our 5’s rapidly intensified within 3 days of landfall. It’s about timing and “luck” as much as anything else.

If we’re just talking landfall zone, I think that’s true, but storms don’t end there of course. The surge of this one was record breaking and far reaching too.

Worse. This will be the storm of record for a lot of people.

Made my week. I’m so happy to hear this. Prayers for everyone waiting to hear from their loved ones.

Tropical Storm Kirk Discussion Number 4 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL122024 1100 AM AST Mon Sep 30 2024 Satellite images show an expanding area of central convection near the system with the low-level center on the western side of the deep convection. Microwave data from a few hours ago showed that an inner core is forming, with a partial eyewall noted on an AMSU pass. The initial wind speed is set to 45 kt based on 40-45 kt winds from a pair of recent scatterometer passes. The motion of Kirk appears to be westward at about 10 kt, with the center apparently re-forming to the south within the deeper convection. The track forecast is relatively straightforward, with Kirk expected to follow the south and southwestern edge of the subtropical high over the east-central Atlantic, resulting in a path that gradually gains latitude and Kirk moving northward by this weekend. Other than a small westward adjustment based on the initial motion, the new forecast is very close to the old one. The environment around Kirk appears quite favorable for strengthening during the next several days, with warm waters, a moist environment and low shear in forecast. Given the formation of an inner core, the rate of strengthening has been raised in the short term, and rapid intensification is a distinct possibility. The biggest negative to this system is probably its large size, which could eventually promote eyewall replacement cycles and some SST cooling ahead of the system. Still, almost all of the guidance show Kirk becoming quite a large and powerful hurricane. The new NHC intensity forecast lies between the dynamical model consensus and the statistical-dynamical models, which are quite bullish on this system. FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS INIT 30/1500Z 13.5N 34.8W 45 KT 50 MPH 12H 01/0000Z 13.6N 36.4W 55 KT 65 MPH 24H 01/1200Z 14.0N 38.7W 70 KT 80 MPH 36H 02/0000Z 14.7N 40.4W 80 KT 90 MPH 48H 02/1200Z 15.8N 41.8W 90 KT 105 MPH 60H 03/0000Z 17.1N 43.1W 100 KT 115 MPH 72H 03/1200Z 18.4N 44.4W 105 KT 120 MPH 96H 04/1200Z 20.7N 46.7W 110 KT 125 MPH 120H 05/1200Z 23.5N 48.7W 105 KT 120 MPH $$ Forecaster Blake

Peak Season Forecast (Aug 20-Oct 20) Named Storms: 15 (6) Hurricanes: 10 (3) Major Hurricanes: 5 (1) Francine (H), Gordon, Helene (MH), Isaac (H), Joyce, Kirk

Worth a thread given the forecast to become a major hurricane. Not expected to impact land but could be a big ACE producer. 000 WTNT42 KNHC 292045 TCDAT2 Tropical Depression Twelve Discussion Number 1 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL122024 500 PM AST Sun Sep 29 2024 The system we have been monitoring in the eastern Tropical Atlantic (AL90) has continued to become better organized throughout the day. After an overnight deep convective burst, outer convective banding has become better defined, noted by the most recent TAFB subjective Dvorak fix of T2.0/30 kt. GOES-16 1-minute visible imagery also shows that the circulation, which was more elongated this morning, has become better defined on the western side, suggesting a well-defined closed vortex now exists. Based on the above data, advisories are initiated on Tropical Depression Twelve this afternoon, with an initial intensity of 30 kt. The motion of the new depression currently appears to be westward at 270/8 kt. A prominent subtropical ridge to the north should continue to steer the system generally westward to west-northwestward over the next couple of days. After that time, this ridge becomes more eroded by a mid-latitude trough on its western side, resulting in the system gradually turning more poleward through the end of the forecast. In general the guidance is pretty tightly clustered for the first 48-60 h, with spread increasing a little more thereafter related to how quickly the system turns poleward. The initial NHC track forecast lies near the HFIP Corrected Consensus Approach (HCCA), which favors the ECMWF track a little further west than the GFS track. For at least the next 2-3 days, vertical wind shear is expected to remain low, mid-level moisture stays high, as the system remains over 29-30 C sea-surface temperatures. Yet, the current large convective envelope of the system suggests it may take a day or so for an inner-core to become established. Thus, the initial rate of intensification is a bit slow, a little under the guidance for the next 24 hours, but then becomes faster and ends up near the IVCN consensus aid by 120 h. The initial NHC intensity forecast shows TD12 becoming a hurricane in 60 h and a major hurricane in 5 days. FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS INIT 29/2100Z 13.8N 32.5W 30 KT 35 MPH 12H 30/0600Z 13.9N 33.6W 35 KT 40 MPH 24H 30/1800Z 14.2N 35.7W 40 KT 45 MPH 36H 01/0600Z 14.5N 38.1W 50 KT 60 MPH 48H 01/1800Z 15.0N 40.0W 60 KT 70 MPH 60H 02/0600Z 15.9N 41.5W 70 KT 80 MPH 72H 02/1800Z 17.4N 42.7W 85 KT 100 MPH 96H 03/1800Z 20.0N 45.0W 95 KT 110 MPH 120H 04/1800Z 22.5N 47.5W 105 KT 120 MPH $$ Forecaster Papin

Some of the analysis is truly remarkable

Oops, I posted in the wrong thread. Agree though that any CVs are highly unlikely to be impactful here.

Exceptionally late start to CV season, but it looks like it’s underway.

There’s a strong signal that CV season was delayed but not quite denied. 90L and/or the wave behind it could become quite strong.

You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers. I hope he’s ok.

Totally agree. More would’ve tested the coast and the area to my SE if the area had a better road network (and it was daylight). And yeah, while it was a good eyewall I also thought given the velocities aloft the winds would’ve been much more intense. I know you’re not downplaying anything. That’s a legitimate concern. Edit: if I had to guess I would say we peaked between 100-120. I know the floor was verified with the airport report, and I think based on some of the damage I saw compared to Idalia the year before that there were isolated pockets closer to 120 gusts. I think that’s in line with what others saw—high end 2/low end 3 gusts. With a similar radar velocity profile Laura was much worse.

It looks like both the latest iterations of the GFS and Euro want to bring its remnants or whatever up here after the Gulf, but, ya know, . The first and only time I’ll ever use that emoji.

Appreciate the kind words. Would love some thoughts from others too but looking back at least at the Perry airport data it does seem like there were more gusts than high end sustained winds. Part of that may be related to what recon was finding pre-landfall. There were a lot of tremendous flight level winds but not a lot of surface estimates that matched up—but note that the NHC is reviewing its SFMR process. It’s possible that in the hours it took for Helene to close off its inner core and expand its hurricane force wind field Thursday that there just wasn’t enough time to effectively translate those very high winds aloft to the surface. Each hurricane has its own sound, but there wasn’t much of a howl in the eyewall. It was definitely more big gust dependent. Funny enough, looking southeast there was tremendous lightning and a big roar just off the deck, but the southern eyewall was nonexistent when we got to the other side of the eye. As for the gusts further inland, they were definitely aided by two things and maybe aided by another. All created the perfect conditions for a generational inland wind event. 1) This was a fast mover. It reminded me of NE systems that rocket north and bring wind far into the region. The 1938 Hurricane was a classic example. It didn’t decay quickly by crawling inland. 2) The trough/jet assisted in maintaining Helene’s intensity without a doubt. See Windspeed’s earlier post about a possible sting jet. Even without that, the jet enhanced winds aloft as Helene was moving quickly but decaying—keeping high end gusts on the table. 3) This is somewhat educated speculation, but I think the big winds aloft at landfall allowed for the storm to keep producing big gusts inland. Kind of related to #1 but if Helene isn’t intensifying at landfall and producing big wind just off the deck there’s no way the gusts we saw could propagate as far inland as it did.

I haven’t had a chance to post here until now but I took the time this evening to read every post. I cannot begin to express how sorry I am for your region being devastated like this. I truly hope and pray that resources arrive swiftly and that the recovery can start as soon as possible. To @wncsnow and @calculus1 especially, you and your families are in my thoughts and prayers. Hopefully this is helpful but for folks that have intermittent signals and need to reach family, if you have an iPhone that’s been updated recently there’s a feature to text by satellite. All you need to do is go outside and the phone will walk you through it. I used it in Perry literally on the backside of the eye when services were down and it worked well.

Glad you are ok. An exceptional system in a multitude of ways.

Maybe it’s too fast again, but the Gulf signal looks real. Could be a hurricane in the Gulf and open Atlantic next week. I don’t think the ceiling is nearly as high as it was for Helene but it’s obviously very early. Beyond that, I wonder if we will keep the activity going with tropical waves getting west to a more favorable environment.

I’m guessing if there were higher echelon winds, it happened to my SE in the zone between Perry and Salem where there’s nothing. We were more northern eyewall than that exceptional east side. Do you know if any chasers measured wind in that zone? I will also say I saw someone driving in Laura’s NE eyewall in pitch darkness. People are crazy lol.

Glad I could help. Unfortunately idk how to do it for FB.

Final video and wrap up.

Thanks for the question. Here are some of my thoughts about the chase (long post alert): I think the wind delivered. It’s extremely hard to visually estimate wind speeds (which is why doing a damage report after the storm is so important) but the Perry airport reported a wind gust of 99 and they only report 3x an hour and didn’t have a peak wind from what I could see. I like studying wind. Perry is about 10-15 miles inland so there’s going to be significant wind reduction due to surface friction, and I think the general public and even chaser/wx enthusiast wind expectations can be out of whack. If any storm is making landfall, I lop off a significant percentage of what I expect in sustained and peak wind gusts. But it doesn’t diminish the storm. At all. That’s just the reality of surface wind reduction. The eyewall of Laura was head and shoulders above what I saw in the eyewall of Helene, but Helene was better than what I saw in Idalia just last year—to be expected since they were different categories. Laura made landfall at 150mph. LCH had sustained winds of 105 and gusts to 132 before going offline. Winds were certainly higher than those reports in both categories but still weaker than the objective advisory analysis. The damage was incredible, but many well built structures survived. Idalia was off its peak, but still produced substantial wind and lightning. There was also some structural damage. Here with Helene, it looked and felt worse, even at night, but looking objectively after the fact I wonder if we missed the worst winds just southeast between Perry and Salem. Too rural to do anything other than risk yourself in a highly rural location. I should’ve attempted to head there after to survey. Still, we were getting hit hard in Perry. That’s impressive wind even with a 20% reduction. I’m certain I would’ve seen it in Laura if I went to a more populated area, but this is the first time I saw some store fronts blown out. Here’s my last video documenting the worst. Finally—two things 1) It’s truly extraordinary to see the extent of the catastrophe. Record surge in Florida, potentially generational inland wind damage all the way into the Carolinas, and of course, the historic flooding in GA, the Carolinas, and TN. This will be the storm of record for a lot of people, and it continues to rewrite the rules on the ceiling of CAG systems. 2) Something I said last night elsewhere— This was the first time I really saw chaser convergence for a TC. There were some that understood that there are people whose lives would be dramatically different after the storm and others that did not care. There are always some that do things that make first responders jobs more difficult. I sat with an elderly couple in the lobby of the hotel as the eyewall was approaching. Folks from Perry. Terrified. Guys were talking about 150+ mph winds at 4000 ft or whatever and backslapping and making it feel like a party while the wife was barely holding back tears. I took the time to explain to them why some of us do what we do and the science of surface wind reduction. Took the time to explain that the hotel was very well built and that they didn’t need to spend the night in the staircase. Showed a little empathy and reassurance that their home wasn’t going to get ripped apart like an EF-5 in Oklahoma. I would consider myself a pro now. This is what I do. My first rule has always been to respect the people in the places you go. Now I’m not perfect and I can’t be. I say that and my hotel room is one less a person evacuating could get. I defied a mandatory evacuation order though Perry is outside FL’s evacuation zones and I do not drive during the worst as a rule. Unlike when I started, these days I travel because I think I’ve gotten good enough to add on the ground value and my chases have reflected that imo. I’m not one to do the whole moralistic thing, but I firmly believe that chasers should never be the story. Show up and do your thing, but show respect to the people that don’t get to fly in and fly out. I cut out a number of clips and won’t post them because of the celebratory vibe they gave off. That’s just not cool to me in a catastrophic event.