Normandy Ho

Might have another homebrew situation occurring of the Great Bend of Florida. This one would have more water in front of it

The vort max ESE of Brownsville might be the one to watch

Starting to look very good on radar. Odds are up this gets a name I think

if the GFS is to be believed, August will still pump out at least 4 NS. The MDR is absolutely cooked though, or it will have an absurdly late start.

The bad news.....98L is vanishing. The good news....look off the SE coast.

The only negative factor I see (and it seems like its a general issue with systems this year)....we have two areas of of competing vorticity.. I see one due south of Louisiana and another east of Brownsville

This GOM system i think might be slept on. Looking at the cloud fields over Texas and Louisiana, there seems to be a very large developing low SSW of New Orleans.

Eating my popcorn watching this unfold. Idub looking strong today!

The models showing so little Cape Verde activity is interesting (and spooky, because perhaps this will be a west based peak season). Will have to watch closely and see if this comes to fruition over the rest of the month.

I easily see a path to 18 / 8 / 5. September alone can produce nearly half of these numbers when things get going. Additionally we have no idea what November is going to look like.

Unless they form further west. Most MDR storms end up fish regardless. It does look like SNE is gonna miss out this year though

@ ldub23 Can we make a deal? If the season ends above average can you never post in this topic again? If it ends below average, I never post in this topic again. I like your enthusiasm but I think we need some stakes on this take (WWF career match style).

That seems like a pretty significant nighttime tornado event...hopefully it under produces.

Surprised there isn't more activity on this event currently on-going. hopefully everyone ins its path is ready

I disagree. Warehouses like this actually do the opposite as what you are stating. The lack of interior bearing walls, methods of roofing attachment, and methods of exterior wall attachment of warehouse buildings means that a violent tornado is likely to remove the building skin and roof within second. It would be akin to peeling off a sheet of paper, leaving the structural frame completely exposed. Once the structural system is completely exposed, there is no "wind catching" whatsoever. The deformation you are seeing is the winds deforming the structural system with whatever PSF is required to deform the steel. In general this is 35,000 PSI of force, which is produced by 306 MPH winds. Lets clarify removal of anchor plates as well. Anchor plates are the means by which steel columns transfer load to the foundation structure. Steel beams are connected to said columns using moment connections or fixed bolted connections. In this case because seismic is not a concern, fixed bolted connections are likely being used. If a steel frame, which acts as one rigid body, is being deformed to the point of collapse.....you can bet an EF-5 is the culprit. Winds below 200 mph are simply not enough to mangle a low-story, wide base steel structure that has beams up to 2'-0" deep. Focus on the structural system, not the overall building damage. Wind catching is more of what you are seeing here: Where a structure is so tall that the wind exerts large amount of force on the upper half of a structure that the mid point deforms. In this case, it absolutely does NOT take 35,000 PSI to deform the steel because there is additional force being generated by the top heavy structure moving laterally. https://www.columbian.com/news/2017/feb/20/storms-damage-san-antonio-area/ EDIT: Here is a great video that illustrates how insane it is that a steel structure can be deformed to the point of collapse by winds. This is our famous gas station video of hurricane charley. it is widely assumed that winds in this video reached somewhere between 140 - 150 mph sustained. That is well below the EF-5 threshold obviously, and notice what happens to the steel frame: Nothing. The same kind of process happens when a tornado hits a warehouse building. The skin is shredded leaving the structure exposed. Whether that structure gets deformed further depends on the wind / PSF generated. Here it was below the threshold to bend steel. In Mayfield it clearly was not.

if you want photographic evidence of EF5 damage, look no further than the candle factory. We have an entire steel frame that has been bent and deformed to the point that the steel Columns holding the steel beams collapsed. steel deformation / bending occurs after 35,000 PSI (or 247 PSF). It takes 306 mph winds to produce 247 PSF. And yet we are looking at slabbed homes and determining the structures aren’t well built? As I said before, these folks have no clue what they are looking at and it really is unfortunate.

Even that example there is not nearly enough information to say an outrageous statement that there are “no connections”. The entire building is gone. The only thing I can even begin to deduce is it was a wood frame house, with wood framed floors, built on CMU walls with a Crawl space beneath. And even that assumption is guesswork with no other elements to review.

More nonsense. That is a standard wood stud framed single family home with brick veneer facing. It has standard anchorage to the slab as seen by the bolts sticking out of the base stud. The brick is completely non-structural and can actually be removed by winds lower than 100 mph. The wood framed building cannot be removed by winds that low, and that is fairly obvious. They have no clue what they are looking at if they think an EF-2 tornado did that.

Even the fact that a preliminary analysis of this turns out an EF-4 designation is very problematic. There are several obvious indicators that this was as strong as other tornadoes that have been given both the EF-5 and F-5 designation. Stating that there is a lack of "well-built" structures that have been swept away with only slabs remaining as a justification of not finding EF-5 damage is absurd. As an architect this frustrates me because how is anybody defining what "well-built" means, and more importantly: How can you determine if something was well-built if the entire damn structure is gone? People can say "Well look at the anchorage". There is no building code that requires a structure have anchorage that can survive 200 mph winds. From an engineering standpoint is isn't feasible with wood frame buildings (never mind the fact that the 200 MPH winds are throwing cars, trucks, etc at high velocities that impact the structure). I cannot emphasize this enough: A building is only as "well-built" as the local building codes dictate. The definition of "well-built" should not be determined by the ability to partially survive a 200 MPH tornado. Building codes do change often times, and are usually caused by natural disasters. However I can pretty much guarantee that building codes in tornado alley do not have provisions like those in other natural disaster afflicted areas (hurricane zones, seismic zones, etc). And even if they have it is a moot point because the damage assessment requirements are extremely vague. The EF scale is so flawed on so many levels that its hard to even use it as a scientific tool. How can the El Reno tornado be an EF-3 when 300 mph winds were measured by DOW? How can the Jarrell tornado be an EF-5 based on damage alone when it was moving 10 mph (as opposed to other faster moving EF-5's like this one who did the same damage)? How are we simply ignoring other factors like defoliation, trees being debarked, ground scouring, etc? Damage should never be the be all, end all factor in determining tornadic windspeeds: because we have no earthly idea why tornadic windspeeds do the damage they do. And I present the picture below as evidence. Nobody who is assessing damage can sit in front of me and tell me with a straight face that this tornado did not have 200 mph winds because of poorly built structures when we have a damn bookshelf with books untouched while the entire rest of the house is completely gone. Its all completely absurd and incredibly unscientific.

Upon closer inspection of this photo, I do not see the rebar within the pieces of concrete (you would see them sticking out the edges). That being said there is ample evidence that this was EF-5

The combination of tree defoliation, mangled vehicles, high death toll, and multiple houses swept clean off foundation leads me to believe EF-5 is likely. Terrrible tragedy and prayers to those affected

The latest GFS now develops a second low north of the first one ahead of Sam. Leaves the first cut-off low behind and recurves Sam and the second together. Unsure how plausible this is, why would the second low develop? Would like to hear from a met

Sam is really going to work right now. Likely approaching major status

The CMC solution is definitely plausible, as all models have the same players on the field. The CMC is just further west and faster, thus allowing the ridge to become more of a blocking ridge and encouraging the phase. Is it the most likely? Probably not.

GFS maintains the idea of cutting off a low ahead of Sam, having that low be drawn SW while Sam pinwheels around it heading due north at landfall.