Boston Bulldog

Vortices are likely disrupted and a bit sloppy at lower levels, but this intense convection will help realign and ramp up the reorganization in time. Favorable shear vector will help with divergence. Perhaps Melissa can close off another core, albeit briefly

Agreed, the ongoing contraction of the core as the vortices get back in concert with each other tells me we should see additional pressure falls through landfall. Insanely anomalous to get a Cat-4 strike in this area of Cuba that is so well guarded by mountainous islands. Sandy is obviously the gold standard when it comes to poleward tracking hurricane intensification over the Eastern Cayman Trench (kind of shocked there isn't a more descriptive name that's easy to find for this body of water), but Melissa is putting on an impressive performance.

Given the broader core and limited time over water, I would bet against Melissa re-attaining Cat 5 status. Perhaps flight level winds will begin to resemble that intensity again, but it is highly unlikely those winds would get down to the surface in time. If Melissa had another 18 hours or so before landfall it’s a different story.

Lightning all over the core now, category 4 landfall certainly back in play

Equally concerning right now is the massive convective feeder band that is blowing up to the NE of the inner core. This is a firehose of moisture flowing into the high terrain of Jamaica now, and is the commencement of what will be a catastrophic flooding event across Eastern Jamaica. Roads across the island will become impassible across even the eastern portion of island. The few remaining emergency services in the east will be entirely unable to reach the unimaginible damage in the west. This has the look and feel of Maria in PR all over again, perhaps to an even more acute degree. There will be portions of the island in desperate situations that will be cut off from the outside world for weeks.

Yep, extreme stadium effect

Good lord. ~940mb by morning? Maybe even lower? Throw intensity guidance out the door, Melissa is about to go low

Melissa is trying with this new eruption of convection. Still too early to tell if this is improving the structure under the hood

I don't think Melissa is home free just yet. Shear is still over the system and it's tilted at the midlevels. Upshear convection has done wonders in organizing the system, but Melissa needs one more convincing push to consolidate its inner core in order to commence RI

Easterly shift is likely due to the center reformation to the E-SE that occurred in the past 24 hours

Pretty impressive convective blow up over the center now. If Melissa can maintain central convection upshear, the storm should take off. We've seen a few organization attempts that have failed, let's see if this one can succeed.

Felt like a March warm sector day with the gusty southwesterlies... now we wait for the cutter's cold front to come crashing through

This storm is a pain in the ass! Hopefully the coastals we get this winter don’t have as many moving pieces

There are many examples of larger tropical cyclones absorbing a nearby smaller tropical cyclone. Pretty fundamental dynamic process

Incredible EWRC presentation on visible satellite this afternoon

As expected, we have our second cat 5 of the season. Really hope we can get recon in there before the next EWRC

Yeah the writing was on the wall pretty quickly this morning, unabated RI was almost a guarantee.@WxWatcher007was correctly calling for this to be the season of the SW Atlantic… once Erin’s cold pool rebounded, that zone has become rocket fuel once again

Humberto is much stronger than a Cat 1 right now, special advisory should be in order before 5pm

Nascent CBs concentrating on the eyewall, warm spot becoming more pronounced on IR. The eye is about to pop out

Shrimp mode on satellite, we likely have a hurricane soon

Mount Ellen alone is a great mountain, and that is an absolute steal. Ellen’s lifts have been in a bit unreliable in recent years, so sometimes there are weekday closures of terrain that can be a bit maddening. Alterra definitely needs to pour some money into the operation. Mad River Glen next door also offers a $180 season pass for college students as well.

Kiko is a beauty. Definitely taking on some annular characteristics

Latest Kiko discussion suggests that post EWRC, Kiko’s environment could support annular characteristics. Not a ton of banding at the moment

Thanks for sharing, you reminded me of the Landsea paper on the Sahel Monsoon, great point!

Lots of talk nationally of what may constitute a recession indicator for our economy. Looking around here, seeing some recession indicators for tropical weather comprehension, weather model fluency, and the understanding of the relationship between time and numerical weather prediction. Specifically 6 threads since Chantal, and only a 50mph fish storm in the subtropics to show for it. What are we doing here? I guess the inactive period truly was inactive, despite loud opposition. Might be controversial, but I don’t care what’s over Chad right now.