Hurricane Irma

[DUKIECB]

So at the 11:00 am advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Irma now has sustained winds of 180 mph. To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent wind speed of an F3 tornado. It is the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane outside of the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico in NHC records. The pressure continues to drop (925mb in the last aircraft fix) indicating that Irma is still strengthening.

The forecast track is looking more and more grim for south Florida and the intensity, although not quite at the strength it is now, is still predicted to be at least a Cat 4 when it gets there.

I'm a bit of a weather geek and have followed the dynamics of these things for a long time and the satellite presentation of Irma in the last couple of hours is about as impressive as you will ever see. Truly amazing.

[OldPhiKap]

So at the 11:00 am advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Irma now has sustained winds of 180 mph. To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent wind speed of an F3 tornado. It is the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane outside of the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico in NHC records. The pressure continues to drop (925mb in the last aircraft fix) indicating that Irma is still strengthening.

The forecast track is looking more and more grim for south Florida and the intensity, although not quite at the strength it is now, is still predicted to be at least a Cat 4 when it gets there.

I'm a bit of a weather geek and have followed the dynamics of these things for a long time and the satellite presentation of Irma in the last couple of hours is about as impressive as you will ever see. Truly amazing.

The sad thing is, the best defense against Irma's full wrath is if she ravages Cuba or Hispaniola first instead of an initial hit on the mainland. Someone is gonna take this really hard, and it is difficult to think that we have to hope a poor island nation gets it instead of us. But that's the physics/nature of it.

As a corollary -- people ignore the warnings of climatologists at their own peril, I am afraid.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

The sad thing is, the best defense against Irma's full wrath is if she ravages Cuba or Hispaniola first instead of an initial hit on the mainland. Someone is gonna take this really hard, and it is difficult to think that we have to hope a poor island nation gets it instead of us. But that's the physics/nature of it.

As a corollary -- people ignore the warnings of climatologists at their own peril, I am afraid.

Indeed, those tiny third world countries are about to get the serious hammer drop. Say some prayers.

[fidel]

So at the 11:00 am advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Irma now has sustained winds of 180 mph. To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent wind speed of an F3 tornado. It is the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane outside of the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico in NHC records. The pressure continues to drop (925mb in the last aircraft fix) indicating that Irma is still strengthening.

The forecast track is looking more and more grim for south Florida and the intensity, although not quite at the strength it is now, is still predicted to be at least a Cat 4 when it gets there.

I'm a bit of a weather geek and have followed the dynamics of these things for a long time and the satellite presentation of Irma in the last couple of hours is about as impressive as you will ever see. Truly amazing.

Good links?

[PackMan97]

Good links?

Weather Undreground is always one of my favorites. As is the National Hurricane Center.
WU: https://www.wunderground.com/hurrica...cal-storm-irma
NHC: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/grap...html?tswind120

[DUKIECB]

Good links?

Irma.jpg
Textbook.

As others have said, the U.S. would benefit from the islands taking more of the storm but a Cat 4 or 5 there would mean enormous loss of life and property.

[Tripping William]

At this point, there's probably no non-terrible outcome to this. For instance, my admin's sister and her husband live on St. Thomas, thought they had a charter flight available to get them off the island, but just learned that the airport is shutting down & is highly unlikely to let them fly. Scary stuff. And heaven help Texans/Louisianans if this thing does happen to get into the Gulf. And heaven help Florida/Georgia/Carolinas if it doesn't.

I have an NSFW name or two for Mother Nature lately . . . .

[YmoBeThere]

The potential storm in the Gulf right now may play a factor in where Irma ends up. Jose looks like it will run into Irma, this will all be very interesting to see where 3 potential storms end up.

[jimsumner]

This reminds me of Hurricane Floyd, back in 1999. Heading straight for Florida, then took a right turn and barreled into North Carolina.

[BD80]

The potential storm in the Gulf right now may play a factor in where Irma ends up. Jose looks like it will run into Irma, this will all be very interesting to see where 3 potential storms end up.

That sounds like a confrontation worthy of pay-per-view

[Indoor66]

That sounds like a confrontation worthy of pay-per-view

Depends on where you live, 😎

[dudog84]

Hate to curse anyone with this storm, but it would be best if it tracked a little south and hit the mountains of southeast Cuba. We here in Florida are going to get pounded regardless, and we don't have any topography to take the punch out of her like Cuba does.

There have been only 6 Atlantic storms in recorded history with sustained winds greater than 180 mph. People around here are talking about it as a Category 6, although there is officially no such thing. But the scale does go in 15-25 mph increments, and Category 5 starts at 157. So...

[duketaylor]

Hate to curse anyone with this b*tch of a storm, but it would be best if it tracked a little south and hit the mountains of southeast Cuba. We here in Florida are going to get pounded regardless, and we don't have any topography to take the punch out of her like Cuba does.

There have been only 6 Atlantic storms in recorded history with sustained winds greater than 180 mph. People around here are talking about it as a Category 6, although there is officially no such thing. But the scale does go in 15-25 mph increments, and Category 5 starts at 157. So...

I am also an absolute weather-geek; this is one scary storm which could easily strengthen over the next day or so. Steering, by almost all models (eerily almost the same), have it hitting near Miami and possibly turning NW through all of Florida and into the interior, such as Tenn and Ky and WVA. This, obviously could change as there's a cold-front coming through tonight.

It appears to be about "the perfect storm" and now the pressure has dropped 10 more millibars to 916, lowest I've ever seen.

Good luck to us all!!!

[BigWayne]

Barbuda is the first place that is going to get hit.
Winds are picking up now. Up to ~30 MPH as I write this.

https://www.wunderground.com/MAR/buoy/BARA9.html

[BigWayne]

Barbuda is the first place that is going to get hit.
Winds are picking up now. Up to ~30 MPH as I write this.

https://www.wunderground.com/MAR/buoy/BARA9.html

Got up to 118 MPH before the wind sensor stopped transmitting.

barbuda2.jpg

[BigWayne]

Same thing happened in St Thomas. Got up to 113 and then either the monitor broke or they lost communications.

So far, Barbuda, Anguilla, St Bart, St Thomas/John, and the BVI took a direct hit.

[BigWayne]

Good links?

Found this page today: http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/fvGFS/fvGFS_products.php

You can pick the different dates and see the model forecasts for each run. The simulated IR is the easiest for me to use to see what they are predicting.
This is coming from the people that used to do the GFDL model, which I recall being the most reliable one back when I lived in Georgia and really tracked these storms. The track that Wunderground shows labeled GFS is coming from these guys.

One of the most interesting things is to pick the different runs and see how much the forecast changes each day or even after just another 6 hours. You really can't trust anything coming out of these models beyond 2 days.

The big thing with this one is predicting when it's going to turn. Every time the model runs, that point is changing around and has a dramatic effect on what the human impact will be. Right now, this model shows that turn happening Sunday morning and keeping the eye off the coast of Florida going almost straight North raking the entire coast of FL. The run on Tuesday had that turn happening the same time on Sunday but placing the storm just past Key West when it did, which would have raked the west coast of FL. The run on Monday had it plowing into Cuba and mostly breaking up.

Another interesting thing is the wind shear simulations. These all show a pretty good stream of wind running east over Georgia that should weaken the storm when it gets that far North. That has not changed much in the last few days of simulations.

[OldPhiKap]

Storm still shifting east through Georgia. Good news, eye sliding away. Bad news, northeast "dirty" quadrant.

All of Georgia east of I-95 (including Savannah, Brunswick, Golden Isles) have mandatory evacuations per agovernor Deal. Schools in town already closed for next Monday through Wednesday because they act as inland shelters for coastal evacuees.

At least I have plenty of Zima and Pop Tarts. Gonna ride on through.

[YmoBeThere]

Storm still shifting east through Georgia. Good news, eye sliding away. Bad news, northeast "dirty" quadrant.

All of Georgia east of I-95 (including Savannah, Brunswick, Golden Isles) have mandatory evacuations per agovernor Deal. Schools in town already closed for next Monday through Wednesday because they act as inland shelters for coastal evacuees.

At least I have plenty of Zima and Pop Tarts. Gonna ride on through.

Appears NHC has it now drifting west, blanketing all of FL, through the heart of Georgia and headed straight to Nashville.

[JasonEvans]

Meanwhile, following in Irma's wake is another Cat 3 hurricane, Jose, and over in the Gulf is a Cat 2, Katia. Yup, 3 hurricanes at one time. There is a chance Katia reaches Cat 3 at the same time as the other 2 marking the first time in recorded history we would have 3 major Atlantic hurricanes at the same time. Yay, history!



Luckily, the fact that Jose is closely following the path Irma set means Jose is facing colder waters (Irma stirred them up pretty good) so it is not likely to get quite a strong as Irma. Jose is expected to turn north before it gets to the larger islands of the Caribbean, though I think there are some places that will have gotten hit by 2 major hurricanes in one week... simply stunning. Katia is, thankfully, headed toward Mexico, not the coast of Texas, though I would imagine some bands of storms from Katia will still reach the areas that are still flooded from Harvey.

-Jason "pretty sure this is going to be the worst hurricane season in American history... Yay, history!" Evans