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Hurricane Irma


downeastnc

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2 minutes ago, Cold Rain said:

But all the models had this thing bombing out with jet fuel and all that.  This thing looks ragged.  Will be interesting to see if they downgrade on the next advisory.  It was looking pretty good last night, but it just has too much dry air in the core now, it looks like.

Look at the buoys down there nothing much more that 65-70 knts so far and the highest gust are way east near Miami, there is a plane almost there, the last pass a few hrs ago was Cat 2 at best wind wise....

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SUMMARY OF 800 AM EDT...1200 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...24.5N 81.5W
ABOUT 20 MI...30 KM ESE OF KEY WEST FLORIDA
ABOUT 110 MI...180 KM S OF NAPLES FLORIDA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...130 MPH...215 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNW OR 330 DEGREES AT 8 MPH...13 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...929 MB...27.43 INCHES
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The worst is probably Marathon and the Keys NE of the center it is the strongest but she is going down hill fast. She is going to go more east as well it appears will Likely landfall over Everglade City over the Naples but she will be a Cat 1/2 at best most quads except possibly a very small area of higher winds in the NE side......still widespread gust 60-80 over all of southern Florida....

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10 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

Look at the buoys down there nothing much more that 65-70 knts so far and the highest gust are way east near Miami, there is a plane almost there, the last pass a few hrs ago was Cat 2 at best wind wise....

Yeah that's the thing I haven't understood well over the last day or so.  It could very well be that I don't know a new rule or something.  But I thought that surface winds needed to be SUSTAINED between x-y in order to qualify for a certain Category.  No recon obs that I've seen support a Cat 4 right now.  Are they just guessing that 130 mph sustained winds are in there somewhere?  Or are they just maintaining that strength so people take it seriously?

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NE eyewall over Key West they are gusting to 60 knts....thats barely hurricane force....http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=KYWF1

Vaca Key in the NE eyewall......also low 60 knt gust....http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=vcaf1

Not sure why this is a Cat 3 still....if there are Cat 3 winds it has to be in the NE quad and well thats where Vaca Key is so we should see them ramp up there quickly if the winds are that high

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1 minute ago, LithiaWx said:

TS warning for almost all of GA.  Incredible 

Dont hold your breath man its struggling and the shear and dry air are taking a toll on her, she is a Cat 2 minimum 3 at best and those winds will be in a small area.....I think the reason the wind forecast is so high way up there is she was suppose to get up there with a really low pressure and I guess she has maintained a low pressure all things considered but shear and dry air should cause that to come up soon...that and she looks to landfall between Everglade City and Naples unless she jogs west some soon....that will bring the center over land in far south Florida and once she in on shore moving as slowly as she is she will ramp down.....

the plane did just find some 110 mph surface winds in the SE quad.....

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2 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

Dont hold your breath man its struggling and the shear and dry air are taking a toll on her, she is a Cat 2 minimum 3 at best and those winds will be in a small area.....I think the reason the wind forecast is so high way up there is she was suppose to get up there with a really low pressure and I guess she has maintained a low pressure all things considered but shear and dry air should cause that to come up soon...that and she looks to landfall between Everglade City and Naples unless she jogs west some soon....that will bring the center over land in far south Florida and once she in on shore moving as slowly as she is she will ramp down.....

the plane did just find some 110 mph surface winds in the SE quad.....

I disagree a lot man.  The pressure is very low,  the wind field is expansive.  I'm fully expecting tropical storm force winds. She's going to haul ass once she gets cranking north.  

 

I agree shes probably on the way to cat 3 but she's going to still pack one hell of an inland punch. I think all of this cat 5 stuff has numbed a lot of us to the destruction a very deep cat 3 or 4 can cause. 

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2 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

Dont hold your breath man its struggling and the shear and dry air are taking a toll on her, she is a Cat 2 minimum 3 at best and those winds will be in a small area.....I think the reason the wind forecast is so high way up there is she was suppose to get up there with a really low pressure and I guess she has maintained a low pressure all things considered but shear and dry air should cause that to come up soon...that and she looks to landfall between Everglade City and Naples unless she jogs west some soon....that will bring the center over land in far south Florida and once she in on shore moving as slowly as she is she will ramp down.....

the plane did just find some 110 mph surface winds in the SE quad.....

The pressure gradient between the low to our south and the high to our north will enhance the winds to our area. As of now, I do expect the TS warnings issued for GA/SC to verify. Of course this could change as she's expected to hang out in FL most of the day/night, but everything still looks to be on target so far :) 

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11 minutes ago, LithiaWx said:

I disagree a lot man.  The pressure is very low,  the wind field is expansive.  I'm fully expecting tropical storm force winds. She's going to haul ass once she gets cranking north.  

 

I agree shes probably on the way to cat 3 but she's going to still pack one hell of an inland punch. I think all of this cat 5 stuff has numbed a lot of us to the destruction a very deep cat 3 or 4 can cause. 

Its possible but she needs to keep her pressure insanely lo, she has to stay offshore west Florida to do that IMO.....she has half a eye already, that pressure isnt gonna stay low for long like that...this is not the look of a Cat 3 hurricane if she keeps her current heading she will hit the coast south of Naples. If she manages to come ashore that far south and then ride all the way up Florida with her center inland while dealing with shear and dry air and somehow make it to GA with a pressure in the 960-980mb range it will be pretty friggen impressive. Just to be clear I am not saying it cant happen only that I will be surprised if it does based on how she looks this morning and the track she is currently on. 

Buckeye probably does verify onshore winds will be higher....and the center may get further NE than the NHC track....

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Just now, downeastnc said:

Its possible but she needs to keep her pressure insanely lo, she has to stay offshore west Florida to do that IMO.....she has half a eye already, that pressure isnt gonna stay low for long like that...this is not the look of a Cat 3 hurricane if she keeps her current heading she will hit the coast south of Naples. If she manages to come ashore that far south and then ride all the way up Florida with her center inland while dealing with shear and dry air and somehow make it to GA with a pressure in the 960-980mb range it will be pretty friggen impressive. Just to be clear I am not saying it cant happen only that I will be surprised if it does based on how she looks this morning and the track she is currently on. 

Well she's officially a cat 4 at 8am.  Current recon has only found d cat 3.  That said she isn't a 2.  The rest of your point I agree with.  What you laid out is possible.  

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29 minutes ago, LithiaWx said:

TS warning for almost all of GA.  Incredible 

Yeah pretty wild. First time ever I have been under a watch and warning. Regardless of exactly how strong irma  ends up being or its exact   track inland, the squeeze play between her and the mountains is going to make for a pretty wild monday. I keep seeing people who arent very familiar with how the local topography effect winds here brushing off the gfs and euro but I have a bad feeling that it's going to be as bad as advertised.  Just look at the boundary layer wind flow up to   900mb and it's obvious how much the mountains are going to enhance the wind flow by compression and channeling it. I hope I'm wrong because I sure as hell don't want everyone to go without power for days or to have countless trees down. 

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Just now, LithiaWx said:

Well she's officially a cat 4 at 8am.  Current recon has only found d cat 3.  That said she isn't a 2.  The rest of your point I agree with.  What you laid out is possible.  

Yeah 112 mph is the highest surface wind so far....I suspect the NE quad might still have a small area 115-120....places like Miami are gusting to 70-80 mph at best....the highest winds are contained in the whats left of the eyewall and thats a small area....outside of that this is a Cat 1 at best. 

IN3.gif.753126b811f9317243340106cb12c1f0.gif

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16 minutes ago, buckeyefan1 said:

The pressure gradient between the low to our south and the high to our north will enhance the winds to our area. As of now, I do expect the TS warnings issued for GA/SC to verify. Of course this could change as she's expected to hang out in FL most of the day/night, but everything still looks to be on target so far :) 

From just across the Ashley River from downtown it's been surprisingly gusty this morning. We're oriented in about the best way for this sort of thing given the wind direction so the next day or two may be kind of interesting in that regard. Today looks like very little rain though.

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2 minutes ago, Lookout said:

Yeah pretty wild. First time ever I have been under a watch and warning. Regardless of exactly how strong irma  ends up being or its exact   tack inland, the squeeze play between her and the mountains is going to make for a pretty wild monday. I keep seeing people who arent very familiar with how the local topography effect winds here brushing off the gfs and euro but I have a bad feeling that it's going to be as bad as advertised.  Just look at the boundary layer wind flow up to   900mb to the surface and it's obvious how much the mountains are going to enhance the wind flow by compression and channeling it. I hope I'm wrong because I sure as hell don't want everyone to go without power for days or to have countless trees down. 

I get it man, I just wonder if she will have the pressure as low as the GFS and Euro advertise.....if the gradient isnt as tight then there is nothing to compress and channel. If she stays west of Florida and can maintain Cat 3 PRESSURE all the way to N FL then you guys will get hammered, if she comes in at Naples and rides inland all the way up Florida I doubt very much she is able to maintain her low pressure...if she does get up into central GA with a 970-980 mb pressure you guys will get hammered, its not the physics I am questioning its the actual pressure of the storm when it gets up there.....

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32 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

Dont hold your breath man its struggling and the shear and dry air are taking a toll on her, she is a Cat 2 minimum 3 at best and those winds will be in a small area.....I think the reason the wind forecast is so high way up there is she was suppose to get up there with a really low pressure and I guess she has maintained a low pressure all things considered but shear and dry air should cause that to come up soon...that and she looks to landfall between Everglade City and Naples unless she jogs west some soon....that will bring the center over land in far south Florida and once she in on shore moving as slowly as she is she will ramp down.....

the plane did just find some 110 mph surface winds in the SE quad.....

Wrong...the euro has irma near  940mb to 945mb or so near tampa.. regardless, it doesn't matter much what she is at landfall as it  seems fairly obvious that she will be around 970 mb as she moves into south ga...and it's the combo of topography and pressure gradient that will add the extra kick

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4 minutes ago, Ser Pounce said:

From just across the Ashley River from downtown it's been surprisingly gusty this morning. We're oriented in about the best way for this sort of thing given the wind direction so the next day or two may be kind of interesting in that regard. Today looks like very little rain though.

It's been raining off and on since about 4am and the trees are for sure starting to sway :lol:  I'm going to take a trip around the island in just a bit. Hopefully I can get to the beach at Fort Freemont to check out some angry waves. The airport is just a couple blocks away sitting in the middle of the marsh. It went under during Matthew and the surge here is supposed to top Matthew by about 3ft. 

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9 minutes ago, Buddy said:

Pretty decent wind in nw eyewall higher up in the system. 

IMG_3020.PNG

Yeah FL not being translated to the surface very well at all but given the lack of a organized center thats to be expected.....she is moving just west of due north if west at all and the pressure outside of the immediate center keeps coming up....surface pressures in the 960-970 range very close to the center now, ....crazy to me she has been able to keep it this low for this long really cant wait to see the papers on how she did it. 

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4 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

NE pass will show the nastiest winds looks good on radar in the NE quad, Vaca Key which is right on the outer edge of it gusting to 80 so probably some 100-120 mph gust possible over Big Pine Key...Key West gusted to 85 last update but the eyewall is already moving away from them so they should be improving...

Yea certainly not seeing a surface datapoint anywhere near 130kt.

 

It remains though the storm IS maintaining stength somehow and has increased winds in the upper levels over night.

I'm a little incredulous how right now with the way it looks but... it's certainly not the monster storm it was even 48hrs ago. 

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1 hour ago, Cold Rain said:

But all the models had this thing bombing out with jet fuel and all that.  This thing looks ragged.  Will be interesting to see if they downgrade on the next advisory.  It was looking pretty good last night, but it just has too much dry air in the core now, it looks like.

I think the jet fuel was tainted! The take off to cat 4-5, is crashing and burning, like the NC State football team! :)

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She is nasty in the east side, some but we are talking in very small area at least as far as Cat 3 conditions go...the plane is finding 50 mph surface winds just 20-30 miles from the center on the SW side.....in all quads the pressure rises rapidly to 960+ by the time the plane is 20 miles from the center....crazy she is able to keep her center with such a low pressure.

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1 hour ago, Lookout said:

Wrong...the euro has irma near  940mb to 945mb or so near tampa.. regardless, it doesn't matter much what she is at landfall as it  seems fairly obvious that she will be around 970 mb as she moves into south ga...and it's the combo of topography and pressure gradient that will add the extra kick

Got an elderly family member in Toccoa , GA. You believe they will have enough for damages on trees and power lines there!? I need to keep an eye on them.

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