40/70 Benchmark

Yes, I though this window was going to close about 12 hrs early than it is. Nice from a met standpoint, not so nice for the Gulf coast.

@WxWatcher007It was such a tough call on whether to pull the trigger on major peak or not when I issued the first stab on Wednesday...I'm happy with the forecast overall, but looks like I may have underestimated my 110mph peak a bit. I thought conditions would be hostile by dawn today, so that is the difference. Also happy with the Thursday night hedge for best deepening window.

It's a tough call because like they said in the statement, a 6-hour delay in the onset of shear could mean 20mph in LF intensity....so they are making the right call hedging more intense. They have to balance the need to disseminate as precise a forecast as possible to the public with the need to convey a sense of urgency commensurate with the worst possible outcome that can be reasonably expected.

Like I said to you a few days ago, always hedge east when a poleward moving tropical entity is interacting with a mid latitude system....going with the bots was a tremendously easy call. That said, there are no absolutes, so I get the conflicting thoughts by some.

Recency bias.

Yes, this is what I was getting at....I understand that the baseline warming elevates that critical threshold for convection, but the warming across the eastern Pacific was lagging the west Pacific, so these recent potent El Nino events are part of a concerted effort to neutralize that...especially this latter, record surge. It's a battle, so the expression of warm ENSO has been masked to an extent, which is what @ensonerd1233e343was driving at. The antecedent warm west/cool east stratification and the record warm ENSO push are two competing forces, the latter attempting to restore a prior baseline in the midst of rapid GW. You're right...no one knows for sure how this will all work out, and I appreciate the different perspectives.

Yea, I brought up Lily and Opal yesterday...Ivan was another.

We'll see...should interesting to watch play out.

The western Pacific was absolutely warming faster than the eastern Pacific over the past decade. Good discussion....sure beats the hell out of "warm and rainy".

I understand what you are saying, but I feel as though you are viewing it backwards....more heat in the western pacific absolutely triggers a stronger El Niño response from the tropical atmosphere because the earth is trying to redistribute said heat...why do yo think the strongest of El Niño events usually occur on the heels of solar max? Now, if there remains enough residual heat in the western Pacific, then it can create a competing influence that acts to mitigate the warm ENSO expression throughout the extra tropical hemisphere, as we saw in 2023...but let me ask you this...why do you think we have seen two warm ENSO events this strong just three years apart, which is unprecedented in recorded history....I know where my money is.

How are we looking for latter October? Trying to get a feel for whether or not we can get away with doing my 7 yr old's Bday outdoors....looks kind of seasonable-ish?

Doubt it...my call from yesterday still looks good...110mph peak overnight before a Destin, FL LF early Sat at 90mph. Famous last words....lol

On the east coast...

Should be a good flex tonight before it gets pummeled early tomorrow.

I thought we tied the record of 10/8 from 1851.