Hurricane Melissa

[hawkeye_wx]

The next recon plane just took off from Curacao and will be in the eye in a couple hours.

[Floydbuster]

Yeah I read the discussion from the NHC and there was absolutely no mention of shear or undercutting or even fluctuations. They seem to think she is about to bomb to a Cat 5 and they are forecasting landfall at that intensity.

[Arnold214]

At first glance at sat imagery (if I knew nothing else) I'd have guessed it's a cat 5. Perfect symmetric buzzsaw that is the CDO.

[WxWatcher007]

2 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

The next recon plane just took off from Curacao and will be in the eye in a couple hours.

Probably perfect timing. This is peaking in satellite appearance. We’ll see if observational data concurs. 

1 minute ago, Floydbuster said:

Yeah I read the discussion from the NHC and there was absolutely no mention of shear or undercutting or even fluctuations. They seem to think she is about to bomb to a Cat 5 and they are forecasting landfall at that intensity.

Unless there’s a slow ERC or this ticks further west or east than expected, I am finding it increasingly hard to believe there won’t be a category five strike. 

[Floydbuster]

 

[WxSynopsisDavid]

5 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Probably perfect timing. This is peaking in satellite appearance. We’ll see if observational data concurs. 

Unless there’s a slow ERC or this ticks further west or east than expected, I am finding it increasingly hard to believe there won’t be a category five strike. 

I’m afraid the window of ERC is over. The fact it underwent the MERC earlier today was just bad timing all around for Jamaica. At some point tonight or tomorrow, when Melissa turns north, coastal friction will induce intensification that will also cause Melissa’s eye to contract and tighten. This will prevent an ERC on landfall approach.

[Normandy Ho]

Melissa on that bad bitch status. Go to fucking work!

[Nibor]

Impressive explosion of the pink colder colors. Starting to see those outflow striations.

[SnowenOutThere]

16 minutes ago, Nibor said:

Impressive explosion of the pink colder colors. Starting to see those outflow striations.

The gravity waves are pretty cool 

[WxWatcher007]

T 8.0 showing up?

[WxSynopsisDavid]

[Windspeed]

Seeing a classic example of what deep oceanic heat content can support. Melissa has been barely moving the past six hours. More or less a drift W-WSW with wobbles. Yet the satellite presentation has continued to improve. The eyewall is cooling the immediate shallow layer, but instead of upwelling driving down heat support, upwelling is mixing up water that is still above the threshold to support Melissa's MPI. The 26°C isotherm is very deep in this part of the Atlantic. Somewhere between 100 and 150 meters. Interestingly, if Melissa did remain stalled for several days, it would eventually cool and mix down SSTs enough to begin impeding its MPI, and would eventually start to weaken. Unfortunately, timing is such with the trough to begin lifting Melissa's core north back over untapped deep OHC. So I don't think SSTs are going to be a caveat for a powerful TC weakening into landfall. We'll have to look at other dynamics for such, like the onset of fast ERC or structural changes. In other words, Melissa may still have enough time to attain Category 5 status and make landfall as a Category 4. But the differences here are pretty moot points. Despite the potential devastation at the location of landfall for the eye, the still bigger life-threatening event here remains the incredible rainfall totals over the south sloping ridges of Jamaica. Landslides and mudflows are killers.

[Coach McGuirk]

Looks like a cat 5 now. 

[WxSynopsisDavid]

[SnowenOutThere]

Imagine this turns out to be another Eta situation where recon gets in there and it’s hasn’t changed intensity. Not saying it will but would be really funny

[GaWx]

 There are 3 Atlantic basin hurricanes on record on this date or later that were cat 5 and they had these lowest pressures/highest sustained winds:

-Mitch of 1998: Oct 26-28; 905 mb/180 mph; but landfall was way down at 80 mph on Honduras. The extreme rainfall though was what made it so deadly.

-Hattie of 1961: Oct 31; 914 mb/165 mph; it weakened slightly at landfall in Belize to 915 mb/150 mph (cat 4)

-Cuba hurricane of 1932: Nov 5-8; 915 mb/175 mph; but it weakened some before hitting land as it was 150/cat 4 on landfall

  The latest on record cat 5 landfall was on Cuba on Oct 19 (in 1924) near its peak intensity of 165 mph. So, IF this were to hit Jamaica as a cat 5, it would become the latest on record to make landfall anywhere by 9 days.

[WxWatcher007]

2 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Imagine this turns out to be another Eta situation where recon gets in there and it’s hasn’t changed intensity. Not saying it will but would be really funny

The only possible saving grace right now is that the satellite hasn’t matched observations, but idk how much longer that can hold. 

[Windspeed]

Imagine this turns out to be another Eta situation where recon gets in there and it’s hasn’t changed intensity. Not saying it will but would be really funny

Granted, Melissa's ADT is stronger than ETA's ever was. Eta got down to around 912 hPa on ADT, but recon found it to be 10 mb higher. Thus, it never achieved Cat 5 officially. Eta was also embedded inside of a WCARIB surface trough. Melissa's pressure regime is a little higher. So if it is indeed found by recon to be pushing the 910s or 900s hPa tonight, the gradient should support 140+ kt surface winds. But, yes, it would be surprising if ADT busted that hard again.

Edit: I revisited Eta's estimates. It had a raw ADT of 8.0 and 7.0 blend at 912 hPa. But recon found 922 hPa when they finally arrived. The previous recon mission had mechanical problems, and the next mission may have missed peak. Also, we need to keep in mind that it is late October. The tropopause is a little lower even at a low latitude, and cloud tops can get a little colder on IR. So, dvorak satellite estimate algorithm can overdo the raw T numbers. Though I will always argue Eta should have been a Category 5 on reanalysis.

[Coach McGuirk]

Yeah, Jamaica is probably fucked. 

[WxWatcher007]

 

[Windspeed]

Recon just made a 180. Hrmm...

[andyhb]

Annnnnnd recon bailed.

[Windspeed]

And here I was just talking about mechanical issues with recon and Eta's peak. History repeating itself. Damn...

[Floydbuster]

I hope they are okay, and of course, safety first.

 

BUT GOOD GRIEF this sucks.

[WxWatcher007]

Add this to the list of “what could have been” missions lol

Obviously, safety comes first of course.

[Windspeed]

Add this to the list of “what could have been” missions lol
Obviously, safety comes first of course.

Given what ADT is cranking out, if Melissa maintains this appearance through the 5AM, it may still get the upgrade. Conservative estimates are still >140 kts.

[WxWatcher007]

For posterity 

 

[andyhb]

Wait, recon made another turn. They seem to be trying to find a flight path around the strong convection on the east side of the CDO.

[Windspeed]

Wait, recon made another turn. They seem to be trying to find a flight path around the strong convection on the east side of the CDO.

Perhaps.They're definitely en route again based on flight path now.

[Normandy Ho]

Straight freak mode.  Let’s go recon