Major Hurricane Irma

[mfgmfg]

2 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

either the buoy is broken or it's in the eye

0kn gusting to 118kn

It's a weather station right on the water's edge, not a buoy.

[Radtechwxman]

Barbuda got more into the southern eyewall of this and may have avoided the 180+ kind of winds but still really bad. Thank God this is moving and isn't crawling like Harvey did. Those other little islands to the northwest may end up more in the northern eyewall if the current track holds

[LovintheWhiteFluff]

Yes, it's on land. It's SW side of the island and should get more onshore flow once it gets through the eye. 

 

 

 

 

[pazzo83]

I think the station's anemometer is broken.

[yoda]

 

[Juliancolton]

Impressed it lasted as long as it did. Still taking valuable pressure readings, down to 922.5 mb.

[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.