40/70 Benchmark

This is Opal deja vu from that early October morning....same time frame, too.

A tighter gradient will be more disrupted by a redistribution of the windfield than a more broad gradient.

Granted its not going to make it as far north, but Milton reminds me of Opal....small system that bombed out to 150mph in the Bay of Campeche before rocketing NE and striking the panhandle as a cat 3 (125mph) just about exactly 29 years ago. I remember Cantore was in the studio for that one.

Every system has a unique interaction with the surrounding envt. due to size and structural nuances....part of the reason why tropical systems are so difficult to forecast.

My money is on over of just north, but hopefully not.

Yea, but I would take anything to disrupt the current momentum....you never know when the core of these small systems get disrupted.

Of course....definite chance at this range and especially given the angle of approach.

If I were in Tampa, I would be patently praying this barrels into the Yucatan.

I never consider globals in terms of absolute intensity.....just intensity trends. I think small, RI systems like this are especially ill suited to be resolved by globals. But I get your point....this is faster deveoping than anyone thought or any guidance modeled.

Well, globals obviously don't have the type of resolution for that, but I think some of these hurricane models are overboard, though 920s is certainly feasible.

Wow, I didn't think the core would get organized that quickly...

The weakening on the hurricane models was always exageratred as was the max intensity.

Yea, I hate those charts...never use them....raw TCHP is one thing, but I hate MPI products.

Yea....920s sounds about right.

38.1

Yeah, remote sensing and in situ recon data all point to Milton being in the initial stage of rapid intensification that will most like go uninterrupted barring any structural changes. Any call on lowest pressure? I could see a 40-50 mb drop occurring by tomorrow night. Perhaps we can't rule out an even lower drop before outer banding begins to intensify and influence the core. I'm going to say 928 mb is not unrealistic by tomorrow evening. Yea...strong cat 4...I had 130mph max yesterday, but that will probably be too low. If this gets down to 928, then it will make cat 5 with how small it is...that is Andrew like.

Well, that settles that...I was about 24 hours too late on RI.

The most favorable period should be tomorrow night into Tuesday.

Thing is it doesn't look like its only internal processes modulating intensity...in order to reintensify following an EWRC the environment needs to be favorable. However, these same factors causing it to weaken will also expand the system, which is detrimental in terms of surge.

The shear vector doesn't remain parallel to its movement this go around.

I highly doubt any reintensifcstion prior to landfall this time around.

Both solid analogs.

NHC looks to have this going right up Tampa Bay Wed evening.

I would expect a 20-30mb rise.

The 900mb crap is obviously overdone.