NorthHillsWx

For the convo about best looking storms we forgot a relevant one in this region: Mitch at peak 

Just now, justanotheruser said:

 

HOW DO YOU MISS

 

Plane must be dealing with radar attenuation 

3 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

Rita sub-900mb.

I said best looking. That giant cleared out eye approaching land was insane. Rita, Irma, Wilma, even Isabel all come to mind. Lend it to being more recent than the others but that was a perfect looking storm.

edit to add Gilbert as well. Beast 

1 minute ago, nycwinter said:

dorian looked 10 times more intense  on satellite..

Dorian was the all time best looking Atlantic storm 

This is one of the funniest evenings on the board in a while. Good stuff folks good stuff

I can’t believe 2020 pulled off a cat 5 in November 

3 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

Absurd...

Yep, they don’t get much better than this one, 2020 catching up to 2005

908 165kts

2 minutes ago, hlcater said:

woooooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh about as healthy as a pinhole can possibly be.

130 mph would be very conservative...

Without recon I wonder what NHC will asses as the 1 pm advisory? My guess is slightly conservative 130mph cat 4

1 minute ago, hlcater said:

Cat 4 is probably a good bet right now. Would like recon to get in there sooner rather than later, as eye is probably no wider than 6nm or so. An eye that small is not stable and I'm not confident that it maintains itself long enough should the 1730z recon plane end up getting canceled. Think it peaks sometime later today/this evening and kinda just holds steady into landfall. Whether or not this attains cat 5 to me is solely a function of how long can the pinhole remain stable?

I know and truly agree with what @Moderately Unstable said earlier but this thing looks and quacks much more like a high end cat 4 at the moment than anything else I think we’re witnessing historic strengthening ongoing. With the small eye you’re right, it’s allowed this raps level of deepening but is also extremely unstable to hold onto intensity at these levels for long periods of time. NEED RECON NOW 

1 minute ago, Windspeed said:

Constant lightning going off in the eyewall. Recon may find a high end Category 4. Unless there is an ERC/structural change, Eta has our beat shot of attaining Category 5 this year in the basin now. Happens now or try again next year I reckon.

Holy crap. That’s amazing presentation for AVN. I agree, and this thing may be going into historic territory. I don’t think there’s a doubt in my mind recon would find a cat 4 at this point 

Anyone have a classic AVN shot?

Y’all watching Eta this morning? Good grief

This gives me chills. She’s a beaut 

You know it’s a solid storm when the resident board haters aren’t bashing it not calling out names haha 

2 minutes ago, the ghost of leroy said:

Yes. Tax cuts were needed. 

Let’s start a gofundme for the hurricane hunters lol. This site alone could sponsor several extra flights a year! lmao

Just now, hawkeye_wx said:

Apparently, the midday recon got canceled as well.  The schedule had it in the storm late this morning.  Ugh.

Is it too much to ask for recon in the best looking storm of the year?!?! Lol. I’m pretty confident the data would be shocking compared to this mornings flight

1 minute ago, Moderately Unstable said:

I agree on the sat presentation. I think that's why the professionals and amateurs alike are so enthusiastic. This is an excellently structured storm, and the closed eye prevents mixing of outside air and makes 2-3mb falls per hour reasonable to expect. I was more saying, patience. We've got 24 hours to go lol. 

Haha hard not to get excited with this one #satelliteporn 

6 minutes ago, Moderately Unstable said:

Well, haha, I mean, I would be surprised if it was a 4. Hurricanes don't just flip a switch from 1 to 4. Even Wilma took 24 hours to go from 1 to 5. No matter how powerful a storm, the winds don't rocket up to space instantly. We are talking hundreds of square miles. An average hurricane has 108 BILLION pounds of water (a typical thunderstorm is around 106 million pounds). Momentum, p=mv. Mass times velocity. To translate that, you need a LOT of energy to speed up those winds. It takes time. I think it's a 3. It's got potential though. Now everyone can we agree that when the storm doesn't look perfect in 2 hours we won't freak out and think it's over?

Oh I agree but these tight-cored systems can do it and it has the look and T numbers of a cat 4. This looks 100x better than delta as a 4 in the same region for comparison. With a tight core wind speeds can catch up much quicker to pressure falls and I expect an insane pressure fall when next flight gets in there. If it’s not a 4 it’s for sure a high end 3 and still deepening. It already shot up from 65 to 95 kts from 4 to 10 am and I think that rate of deepening has only continued

Also- I’d be shocked if this isn’t already a 4. I can’t believe I’m saying this after what I saw when I went to bed last night but this storm may make a run at cat 5. It is maximizing everything and developed the type of tight inner core that can lead to it reaching full potential in a hurry

18 minutes ago, Amped said:

The eye shape looks great, and stable.   It could use some more warming though, which will probably happen in the next few hours.   I already like this better than delta.

I think it is a cleared out warm eye. It’s just so tiny that it’s somewhat obscured by the high topped eyewall clouds around it and the satellite angle not being exactly above it. You can see it on IR and visible extremely vividly now 

9 minutes ago, Moderately Unstable said:

Per the nhc's official track, substantial. But it should be noted to take the current long term solutions such as the fujiwara effect and low splitting phenomena with a grain of salt. They are likely just model artifacts. I hope they are model artifacts! Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The nhc issues a 5 day and not a 10 day forecast for a reason. It's a good reason.

The fact we have this much tracking in November with non-junk systems is awesome for the weather nerd in me. This season continues to deliver the goods. I’ll take a back-loaded season any day. Eta likely to be this season’s strongest. I think we’re looking at a high end cat 4 based off this mornings trends, location, and tiny size of the system. Almost perfect sat appearance now. Eye rapidly warming and extremely cold tops surrounding a symmetrical core with well established outflow minus some very slight easterly shear. Nothings going to stop this from bombing until land or an unforeseen ERC which doesn’t seem likely due to the fact the core has just become established 

3 minutes ago, Moderately Unstable said:

You're right, but the storm has 24+ hours to go. They have 4 flights scheduled not all with the same division. There is a 0% chance of not having another plane in before landfall. I know what you mean in terms of hoping they don't have more tech issues--I am in the same camp. More just saying, it would be absolutely shocking if they didn't actually send another one in. Nhc would ask noaa hunters and air force to go at same time so that if one had an issue we still got the data.

Be some excellent data if one was in it right now...

11 minutes ago, jpeters3 said:

raw T up to 6.9, up from ~ 5.0, over the course of an hour.

Just silly deepening at the moment. These small core canes can really impress when everything aligns. May go from cat 1 to cat 4 between the 7 am and the 1 pm