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Hurricane PATRICIA & Major EPAC Landfalls


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Those little pressure blips on the stronger side of the storm are interesting. Subvortices in the eyewall?

 

I would imagine they're more to do with pressure fluctuations induced inside the building by the strongest winds.

 

It's a good question, and it's hard to know. They definitely could have been some sort of embedded eddies or localized disturbances. Those especially pronounced dips happened during the really violent winds-- when we were getting raked by the cyclone's core and the building was blowing apart. We were huddled in the bathroom at this time, so I unfortunately didn't actually see what was happening. (Even if I hadn't ducked into the bathroom, it would have been impossible to see anything, as the eyewall brought with it almost a pure whiteout-- it was so vigorous and intense.)

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I went through the recon images and pulled the last three radar shots of the cyclone's core, from about 1 hour before landfall. The plane was quite far from the storm at this point, so there's some attenuation—but the images clearly show that PATRICIA retained a tiny, concentrated inner core up to landfall.

 

Radar images from earlier in the afternoon showed the development of a secondary, outer eyewall—however, a secondary, outer wind max was not apparent on the ground. We got clobbered once, really hard, by that tiny, inner ring. The total duration of damaging winds—including the passage of the eye—was only ~2 hours. The event was very violent, but short duration—this despite the fact that the cyclone wasn't moving very fast.

 

post-19-0-16582600-1449750275_thumb.png

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I went through the recon images and pulled the last three radar shots of the cyclone's core, from about 1 hour before landfall. The plane was quite far from the storm at this point, so there's some attenuation—but the images clearly show that PATRICIA retained a tiny, concentrated inner core up to landfall.

 

Radar images from earlier in the afternoon showed the development of a secondary, outer eyewall—however, a secondary, outer wind max was not apparent on the ground. We got clobbered once, really hard, by that tiny, inner ring. The total duration of damaging winds—including the passage of the eye—was only ~2 hours. The event was very violent, but short duration—this despite the fact that the cyclone wasn't moving very fast.

 

attachicon.gifPATRICIA_radars_COMPLETE.png

Hey Josh! Newbie; big fan. We've talked on Youtube before under your Typhoon Danas video. I'm curious what you think the best eyewall ever captured on radar is? From what I've seen I'd definitely say Andrew but there are probably some lesser known ones that you know of.

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Hey Josh! Newbie; big fan. We've talked on Youtube before under your Typhoon Danas video. I'm curious what you think the best eyewall ever captured on radar is? From what I've seen I'd definitely say Andrew but there are probably some lesser known ones that you know of.

 

Oh, hey, man! Thanks very much-- and nice to see you here.   :)

 

Re: best radar images at landfall... Of course it's subjective, but I'd agree with you that ANDREW in FL is way up there. I always thought CHARLEY in FL looked amazing-- so much so that every time I see the images I kick myself for not having chased it. (I was living in Europe then.) 

 

Typhoon GONI of this year looked totally hawt as it rapidly intensified to a Cat 4 and lashed Japan's Yaeyama Islands. I chased that one-- with the red star indicating my location on Ishigaki-jima. The weather station a block from my hotel measured a gust to 138 knots (159 mph).

post-19-0-21440300-1449783037_thumb.png

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Oh, hey, man! Thanks very much-- and nice to see you here.   :)

 

Re: best radar images at landfall... Of course it's subjective, but I'd agree with you that ANDREW in FL is way up there. I always thought CHARLEY in FL looked amazing-- so much so that every time I see the images I kick myself for not having chased it. (I was living in Europe then.) 

 

Typhoon GONI of this year looked totally hawt as it rapidly intensified to a Cat 4 and lashed Japan's Yaeyama Islands. I chased that one-- with the red star indicating my location on Ishigaki-jima. The weather station a block from my hotel measured a gust to 138 knots (159 mph).

Whoa, the Goni image is sick. It's like Anita but with color.  :lmao:

 

Charley is one of my favorite storms ever (along with Celia) because it was so powerful and yet so rarely talked about outside of the weather weenie circles. But, I'll admit, I've always been a little disappointed with the way the red never completely wrapped itself around the eye...

 

1-radar-2-charley.jpg

 

Anyway, I'm actually kinda glad Patricia weakened the way that she did. I remember the moment the 879 reading came in from recon and thinking, "Wow, this might become Josh's Swan Island..." meaning, the storm that was so violent that it gives you PTSD, ala the guy who stayed huddled under the desk during Janet.

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Whoa, the Goni image is sick. It's like Anita but with color:lmao:

 

Charley is one of my favorite storms ever (along with Celia) because it was so powerful and yet so rarely talked about outside of the weather weenie circles. But, I'll admit, I've always been a little disappointed with the way the red never completely wrapped itself around the eye...

 

 

 

Anyway, I'm actually kinda glad Patricia weakened the way that she did. I remember the moment the 879 reading came in from recon and thinking, "Wow, this might become Josh's Swan Island..." meaning, the storm that was so violent that it gives you PTSD, ala the guy who stayed huddled under the desk during Janet.

Now that you mention it, I see the resemblance. The Anita radar is pretty sick, even for a 1977 B/W radar shot, with a nearly perfect circular eye with a very symmetric and intense eyewall, a very distinct dry moat and what appears to be a nearly completed secondary eyewall.

 

Anita_radar.PNG

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Whoa, the Goni image is sick. It's like Anita but with color.  :lmao:

 

Charley is one of my favorite storms ever (along with Celia) because it was so powerful and yet so rarely talked about outside of the weather weenie circles. But, I'll admit, I've always been a little disappointed with the way the red never completely wrapped itself around the eye...

 

Anyway, I'm actually kinda glad Patricia weakened the way that she did. I remember the moment the 879 reading came in from recon and thinking, "Wow, this might become Josh's Swan Island..." meaning, the storm that was so violent that it gives you PTSD, ala the guy who stayed huddled under the desk during Janet.

 

LOL, you're right about CHARLEY. As beautiful as that core was, yeah, it was a little asymmetric. Still Grade-A, though.

 

I agree with you Re: CELIA-- one of my all-time favorites because of how weird and violent the winds were. (And I'm pretty sure it'll be upgraded to Cat 4 in reanalysis.) But have you ever seen a radar shot of CELIA? It looked weirdly crappy, with the N eyewall open. All the good sh*t-- the stuff that caused the chain of industrial-grade microbursts across metro Corpus Christi-- was in the S eyewall.

 

Back to PATRICIA... Yeah, when the winds were 175 knots, I remember feeling a little sick about it. I'm not sure I'm glad it weakened, though. I wanted to witness (and collect data in) the ultimate-- even if it was life-threatening. What I got was good enough, though.

 

One I also quite like is of Super Typhoon Keith from 1997 passing through the gap in the Marianas.

 

Youtube Radar Loop

 

 

 

Wow, yeah, that looks amazing. Wow. Never saw this. Noice! B)

 

Now that you mention it, I see the resemblance. The Anita radar is pretty sick, even for a 1977 B/W radar shot, with a nearly perfect circular eye with a very symmetric and intense eyewall, a very distinct dry moat and what appears to be a nearly completed secondary eyewall.

 

 Yeah, ANITA was sick. Could you imagine what it would look like on today's radars? Omg.

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That was a pretty impressive chase of a pretty impressive cyclone in a pretty impressive Pacific hurricane season Josh.

 

Got any plans for an Aleutian Low chase someday? Just kidding of course...kind of...but not really. But, no seriously...

 

Ha, ha, no way. :D But I may go for some S-Hemisphere action this year. That seems like the logical next step for me.

 

Glad you liked my PATRICIA chase-- thank you. :)

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Moving away from the weirdness above and getting back on topic...

 

 

LOL, you're right about CHARLEY. As beautiful as that core was, yeah, it was a little asymmetric. Still Grade-A, though.

 

I agree with you Re: CELIA-- one of my all-time favorites because of how weird and violent the winds were. (And I'm pretty sure it'll be upgraded to Cat 4 in reanalysis.) But have you ever seen a radar shot of CELIA? It looked weirdly crappy, with the N eyewall open. All the good sh*t-- the stuff that caused the chain of industrial-grade microbursts across metro Corpus Christi-- was in the S eyewall.

 

Back to PATRICIA... Yeah, when the winds were 175 knots, I remember feeling a little sick about it. I'm not sure I'm glad it weakened, though. I wanted to witness (and collect data in) the ultimate-- even if it was life-threatening. What I got was good enough, though.

 

 

Wow, yeah, that looks amazing. Wow. Never saw this. Noice! B)

 

 

 Yeah, ANITA was sick. Could you imagine what it would look like on today's radars? Omg.

 

Isn't my current avatar (which is just a placeholder until I find something better, that hasn't been posted a billion times before) the only radar shot that exists of Celia? I'll be honest, since it's from 1970 and I'm far from being a met, I have no idea what I'm looking at.  :P Frederic's eyewall (which is rumored to have been roughly around the same intensity as Celia's at landfall) is weirdly disappointing too.

 

Celia was a lot like Andrew in terms of the southern eyewall convection. Convective cells kept popping up ashore, blowing up and peaking over the Naranja area, and then dying back out.

 

hurricane-andrew-homestead-convection.pn

 

Maybe that has something to do with the northern eyewall looking so poor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Isn't my current avatar (which is just a placeholder until I find something better, that hasn't been posted a billion times before) the only radar shot that exists of Celia? I'll be honest, since it's from 1970 and I'm far from being a met, I have no idea what I'm looking at.  :P Frederic's eyewall (which is rumored to have been roughly around the same intensity as Celia's at landfall) is weirdly disappointing too.

 

Celia was a lot like Andrew in terms of the southern eyewall convection. Convective cells kept popping up ashore, blowing up and peaking over the Naranja area, and then dying back out.

 

Maybe that has something to do with the northern eyewall looking so poor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Oh, ha ha ha, I didn't realize your avatar was CELIA. This image below is the only radar shot I've ever seen of CELIA-- from when the eye was entering Corpus Christi Bay-- and you can see here it was not a beautiful system. The N part looks like crap.

 

post-19-0-34756100-1449905366_thumb.png

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Good lord, I don't even know what I'm looking at in that picture. Where is the eye even supposed to be? Heck, the radar picture of the 1944 storm probably had better quality! pukey.gif

 

And I have no idea if the radar pic in my avatar is actually Celia. It just said it was in the description below it.  :P

 

i59m4n.jpg

 

This shot was apparently taken at 1300 whereas your picture was taken at 2000, but if anything your picture should look better, because it was explosively strengthening. Weird. 

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Michael Laca is awesome, and a good friend of Max Hagen, who runs my favorite weather blog (although it hasn't been updated in nearly two years now, haha). Have you read the infamous 'Hurricane Camille Was Not a Category 5 at Landfall' article?  :lmao:

 

Edit: Whoops, sorry if this is going too off-topic.

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Michael Laca is awesome, and a good friend of Max Hagen, who runs my favorite weather blog (although it hasn't been updated in nearly two years now, haha). Have you read the infamous 'Hurricane Camille Was Not a Category 5 at Landfall' article?  :lmao:

 

Edit: Whoops, sorry if this is going too off-topic.

 

CAMILLE was reanalyzed to have been 150 knots at landfall in MS-- however, some folks (a few of whom I respect) don't believe it was that strong. Calculations using all the key metrics (pressure data, RMW, speed of motion, latitude, intensity trend, etc.) place it solidly in Cat-5 territory. But the wind damage close to the open coast, right in the RMW (i.e., Pass Christian) didn't look that bad.

 

Me, I just go with the NHC's verdict-- but I understand the dissent.

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Just to get the thread back on topic (since it seems to have gotten a bit random)...

 

Here are the final three radar shots of PATRICIA, with the last from about 1 hour before landfall. The recon plane was far away by this point, so the radar echoes aren't strong, and there's attenuation, but you can still see that tight inner ring holding on.

 

This radar presentation maps well to what we experienced on the ground. Despite the appearance of an outer ring on earlier radar images, we experienced no secondary, outer wind max on the ground-- the energy was really concentrated in that tiny, inner eyewall, with the entire duration of destructive winds (including the eye) being only ~2 hr.

 

post-19-0-42148300-1449988826_thumb.png

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Hey Josh how long was the wind duration with this one?

 

Hey, Shaggy! How are you? Nice to hear from you. :)

 

The duration of damaging winds was not long-- like 2 hours, or 2.5 hours at the very most. The cyclone's core was tiny, so it just didn't last long. And the really nuclear stuff in the back eyewall only lasted about 15 minutes. The eyewall was a bit asymmetric, so the S side (that came after the calm) was way worse than the N side.

 

This chart I made kind of shows the timeframe of events.

 

post-19-0-48230500-1450089734_thumb.png

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Hey, Shaggy! How are you? Nice to hear from you. :)

 

The duration of damaging winds was not long-- like 2 hours, or 2.5 hours at the very most. The cyclone's core was tiny, so it just didn't last long. And the really nuclear stuff in the back eyewall only lasted about 15 minutes. The eyewall was a bit asymmetric, so the S side (that came after the calm) was way worse than the N side.

 

This chart I made kind of shows the timeframe of events.

 

 

Hey Josh, i'm good. I'm gonna be a new dad in 3 weeks right after xmas and i'm really looking forward to it!!!

 

Its always amazing to me how each storm seems to have its own "personalities". With Bertha the winds were strong gusting in the upper 80's and lasted 4-6 hours then we went into the eye and the storm was pretty much over. Back side winds never got above gusts much over 55-60.

 

Frans eye was much further SW of us but we gusted to 106mph and it was a much longer storm.

 

Floyd was very much like your Patricia experience with obvious exception to strength. Core winds gusted to hurricane force but only lasted maybe 1.5 hours.

 

Irene was a nightmare Storm with gusts over 50 for 16 hours and gusts over 70 from 7am till a little after 5pm.

 

You've had an epic chase season its great you chase with science in mind so that you can get data very few other people will/can get.

 

Awesome work Josh

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So Josh,

 

Your basically saying that It took that storm 15 minutes to do the damage you showed in and around the building?  Im assuming most of the damage occurred during that time frame because the first eyewall passage didn't seem to do much damage other than superficial stuff?  that's very impressive if that's the case

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So Josh,

 

Your basically saying that It took that storm 15 minutes to do the damage you showed in and around the building?  Im assuming most of the damage occurred during that time frame because the first eyewall passage didn't seem to do much damage other than superficial stuff?  that's very impressive if that's the case

 

Actually, a lot of damage happened before the eye arrived. If you check out my video, you can see that there's already a lot of tree damage on the front side, as well as some flying debris-- like, pieces of tin and stuff-- before we get the calm. But the real scary stuff and the heavy structural damage-- with the roof tearing off, etc.-- happened in that 15 minutes or so in the back eyewall. 

 

And, yeah, that's one of the things that makes PATRICIA so impressive. It scrubbed this dense tropical landscape totally bare in a very short time. This was not a long-duration event. PATRICIA did in a couple of hours what other severe hurricanes take half a day to do.

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Hey Josh, i'm good. I'm gonna be a new dad in 3 weeks right after xmas and i'm really looking forward to it!!!

 

Its always amazing to me how each storm seems to have its own "personalities". With Bertha the winds were strong gusting in the upper 80's and lasted 4-6 hours then we went into the eye and the storm was pretty much over. Back side winds never got above gusts much over 55-60.

 

Frans eye was much further SW of us but we gusted to 106mph and it was a much longer storm.

 

Floyd was very much like your Patricia experience with obvious exception to strength. Core winds gusted to hurricane force but only lasted maybe 1.5 hours.

 

Irene was a nightmare Storm with gusts over 50 for 16 hours and gusts over 70 from 7am till a little after 5pm.

 

You've had an epic chase season its great you chase with science in mind so that you can get data very few other people will/can get.

 

Awesome work Josh

 

Wow, congrats on the upcoming addition to your family. Yay! :)

 

I'm surprised FLOYD would match PATRICIA's tightness, because at landfall that one was a large, broad circulation with a big windfield, if I remember correctly.

 

Thanks for your kinds words. It's very exciting to be able to bring value to the science end of it. Isn't it amazing how much just a little high-quality field data can add to the equation?

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Wow, congrats on the upcoming addition to your family. Yay! :)

 

I'm surprised FLOYD would match PATRICIA's tightness, because at landfall that one was a large, broad circulation with a big windfield, if I remember correctly.

 

Thanks for your kinds words. It's very exciting to be able to bring value to the science end of it. Isn't it amazing how much just a little high-quality field data can add to the equation?

 

Yeah, Floyd was a huge mess at landfall. His circulation just about took up the entire eastern seaboard.

 

satellite.jpg

 

:yikes:

 

Honestly, the only recent East Coast storms I know of that looked halfway decent were 1984's Dirty Troll Diana before she recurved and came right back like she forgot her car keys, and Hugo.  

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Yeah, Floyd was a huge mess at landfall. His circulation just about took up the entire eastern seaboard.

satellite.jpg

:yikes:

Honestly, the only recent East Coast storms I know of that looked halfway decent were 1984's Dirty Troll Diana before she recurved and came right back like she forgot her car keys, and Hugo.

Bob 91 had great structure all the way up to the latitude of New Jersey and solid structure into New England

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Not sure how this thread shifted to unraveling East Coast 'canes. :P

 

Back on topic...

 

Members on my Facebook page have many questions about PATRICIA.

  • Filipino members want to know how PATRICIA compares to Super Typhoon HAIYAN (2013), which was previously considered the strongest cyclone ever.
  • Mexican members want to know how PATRICIA compares to Hurricane ODILE (2014), which devastated Cabo San Lucas. As to expected, much of the Mexican public falsely believes ODILE was stronger because it did more damage-- since non-wx nerds often conflate total destruction with intensity.

I made these infographics to boil down these two important comparisons. (With Jorge's (wxmx's) help, I also posted a Spanish version of the ODILE/PATRICIA one.)

 

post-19-0-93465700-1450260199_thumb.png

 

post-19-0-58196700-1450260234_thumb.png

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Not sure how this thread shifted to unraveling East Coast 'canes. :P

Back on topic...

Members on my Facebook page have many questions about PATRICIA.

  • Filipino members want to know how PATRICIA compares to Super Typhoon HAIYAN (2013), which was previously considered the strongest cyclone ever.
  • Mexican members want to know how PATRICIA compares to Hurricane ODILE (2014), which devastated Cabo San Lucas. As to expected, much of the Mexican public falsely believes ODILE was stronger because it did more damage-- since non-wx nerds often conflate total destruction with intensity.
I made these infographics to boil down these two important comparisons. (With Jorge's (wxmx's) help, I also posted a Spanish version of the ODILE/PATRICIA one.)

final_comparison.png

odile_vs_patricia.png

Personally I think Haiyan was stronger, at its strongest then Patricia. Also Haiyan was not directly sampled as Patricia was.

Haiyans satellite presentation was the best of modern times, it likely had much lower pressure and had a much larger wind field. it goes with out saying Hiyan had much more ace and imparted far more energy in to the ocean

Which had the strongest winds in its eye wall at the absolute peak of intensity will never be known unfortunately

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