Major Hurricane Irma

[csnavywx]

Held on like a champ until cat 3 winds/cat 5 gusts hit. Can't ask for much more than that.

[LovintheWhiteFluff]

It says 0 sustained and 0 gusting now

[csnavywx]

That last pass suggests that the pressure may be falling again. Looks like it is avoiding an ERC by merging the outer eyewall with the inner.

[pazzo83]

1 minute ago, csnavywx said:

Held on like a champ until cat 3 winds/cat 5 gusts hit. Can't ask for much more than that.

Not many things can sustain 155+mph gusts.

[OSUmetstud]

915mb with a 15 kt wind.  

[pazzo83]

Hey maybe someone can run out and fix it real quick while in the eye!!

[csnavywx]

Just now, OSUmetstud said:

915mb with a 15 kt wind.  

And there it is. This thing just won't quit. Somehow it dodged that ERC. It stabilized a bit while the outer wind max was going. Now appears that it's largely gone and is once again deepening.

[pazzo83]

The air temp has also increased about 3F, it's definitely in the eye

[OSUmetstud]

Just now, csnavywx said:

And there it is. This thing just won't quit. Somehow it dodged that ERC. It stabilized a bit while the outer wind max was going. Now appears that it's largely gone and is once again deepening.

I find it impressive that like every recon pass is finding cat 5 winds.  consistently 145-160 kt sfmr on everyone.  

[Superstorm93]

14C temperature difference 

915mb 

[Radtechwxman]

4 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

Not many things can sustain 155+mph gusts.

The wx station deserves an award. That's remarkable 

[heavy_wx]

9 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

And there it is. This thing just won't quit. Somehow it dodged that ERC. It stabilized a bit while the outer wind max was going. Now appears that it's largely gone and is once again deepening.

Such high momentum makes things quite inertially stable. Maybe that stability has reduced the radial motion of the inner and outer eyewalls?

[csnavywx]

Just now, OSUmetstud said:

I find it impressive that like every recon pass is finding cat 5 winds.  consistently 145-160 kt sfmr on everyone.  

Yeah, it's unreal. That SE eyewall drop earlier was really something else, too. 230mph winds at 800' is ballistic.

[cyclone77]

The remote position of the weather station definitely helped in keeping it going through the high winds.  Debris flying through the air is likely what kills the anemometers most of the time.

[pazzo83]

1 minute ago, csnavywx said:

Yeah, it's unreal. That SE eyewall drop earlier was really something else, too. 230mph winds at 800' is ballistic.

Something like that hitting Miami with several buildings eclipsing 800' in height would be absolutely catastrophic.  My God.

[Tater Tot]

915 is 1mb short of Janet's intensity in Chetumal.

[csnavywx]

2 minutes ago, heavy_wx said:

Such high momentum makes things quite inertially stable. Maybe that stability has reduced the tangential motion of the inner and outer eyewalls?

That seems possible. Those two eyewalls merged pretty seamlessly over a period of a few hours on radar. That inner eyewall was incredibly strong to begin with.

[USCG RS]

14C temperature difference 

915mb 

&*#&

[yoda]

8 minutes ago, Superstorm93 said:

14C temperature difference 

915mb 

Yeah, that's not good... not good at all

[pazzo83]

That station's barometer is broken too.

[LovintheWhiteFluff]

Can someone explain what this means?

14C temperature difference 

915mb 
 

[bobbutts]

17 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

That last pass suggests that the pressure may be falling again. Looks like it is avoiding an ERC by merging the outer eyewall with the inner.

+ the lightning + the absurd pressures some models show.. I think all the evidence is there (for further strengthening).  How much can we realistically expect in terms of wind with a storm that's already made a run at #1 all time?

[csnavywx]

3 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

Something like that hitting Miami with several buildings eclipsing 800' in height would be absolutely catastrophic.  My God.

Just the differential shear stress alone would be enough to deform even a very well-reinforced building. 130kt at base vs 200kt at 800' is about a 4x differential.

[TellicoWx]

Starting to wonder if a sub 900 reading is possible...as bad as it is to say, need this beast to have some land interaction before Florida if that's its final destination. Not alot over open water to slow it down with a no shear environment. Track away from Cuba is a really bad scenario.

[csnavywx]

3 minutes ago, LovintheWhiteFluff said:

Can someone explain what this means?

14C temperature difference 

915mb 
 

Hurricanes are effectively heat engines. The difference between the eyewall and eye temp is a proxy for the strength of said heat engine. 14C is pretty extreme.

[bobbutts]

 

[Sophisticated Skeptic]

Just now, TellicoWx said:

Starting to wonder if a sub 900 reading is possible...as bad as it is to say, need this beast to have some land interaction before Florida if that's its final destination. Not alot over open water to slow it down with a no shear environment. Track away from Cuba is a really bad scenario.

 

It's definitely going sub-900.    Many other canes reached sub 900 with less optimal conditions.   Irma still has everything going for it. 

[Superstorm93]

Temperature just rose 4 degrees on the island. 

Madness. 

Down to 921mb 

[Radtechwxman]

1 minute ago, bobbutts said:

 

UNBELIEVABLE 

[csnavywx]

1 minute ago, TellicoWx said:

Starting to wonder if a sub 900 reading is possible...as bad as it is to say, need this beast to have some land interaction before Florida if that's its final destination. Not alot over open water to slow it down with a no shear environment. Track away from Cuba is a really bad scenario.

It's possible over that 30-31C bathwater near the Straits and the Bahamas. I'm not sure if it is where it's sitting right now. However, since we're already tested and exceeded MPI values a couple of times with this storm, it's really hard to tell exactly where the bottom is.