NorthHillsWx

From a lemon to a cherry at warp speed

SFMR winds are known to overestimate intensity in shallow water and those highest values were noted in some of the reefs approaching grand Turk. There have been multiple flights into the storm since it was designated a major and just now did they find FL winds to 100kts. I doubt surface winds are 100kts if they cannot find FL winds to that magnitude. Don’t know of another major where we had recon and it was kept a major without FL winds over 100kts. Just my $0.02

New TD in the middle of the Atlantic

Also- per recon I have yet to see anything that confirms this as a major hurricane either yesterday or today. They may have jumped the gun a bit on that classification using satellite estimates.

Did this pass directly over grand Turk? Seems like that was unexpected per track from yesterday. Definitely leaning left. Good for Bermuda, not great for Atlantic Canada

Pretty sure Gaston is about to pop up and head towards the Azores…

97L looks very close to becoming our next NS. Obviously no threat to land. Our well-advertised wave continues to have consensus support for development. Welcome to the party, 2022 Hurricane season

Significant eyewall lightning too

Ready for liftoff.

Per Twitter, sounds like Josh nailed this one.

Significant signal…

Sickening radar returns across PR. This is going to be a devastating flooding impact there. Several gust reports over 100 mph, definitely a feisty storm. Will be interesting seeing if Josh can get the eye in DR

Per recon this is just a tick below a hurricane. Slowly but surely organizing a core. Good convective burst over the center right now. Looks like some mid level dry air is the biggest hindrance at the moment as, based on cloud pattern, shear has decreased. Still not an ideal shear environment by any means but not enough to stop this from slowly strengthening

Regardless of Fiona’s strength/land interaction/current location and heading, models are now showing a much deeper trough approaching the EC. This raises the probability of a recurve significantly. GEFS has been more adamant about this being a deeper trough and looks like other model suites are falling in-line. I expect windshield wiping to continue but not to the extent we’ve seen. I don’t want to rule anything off the table but in this setup I believe it’s a matter of how far west Fiona gets before it recurves vs whether or not the system recurves. An alternate but very unlikely scenario is the system opens up into a wave when you combine land interaction with current structure and ends up plodding west with the trade winds. That is the only way this avoids the trough given modeling trends. I don’t see an organized system of any intensity missing that trough connection

I am becoming more concerned about a EC impact. I think models may have jumped out to sea when the data was originally received and processed that Fiona was stronger than they had initialized. The increase in strength however did not mean a deeper system in this case. This baby is rolling with the trade winds right now. Pulsating convection is not going to pull this northward, it’s stuck in low level flow until shear abates. I think we’ll continue to see westward shifts as I believe the original out to sea shift was primarily based off the premise this was a deeper system. Florida to the Carolina’s need to watch this one. If it makes it to the Bahamas the environment becomes favorable. An upper level anticyclone and a very deep area of high oceanic heat content in a spot that is climatologically favorable. This is a real threat. Happy tracking

59.5 this morning. It was awesome!

Please let Fiona die fast so we don’t have to say Fiona more than a few times. Fiona

All that aside, and this is pure fantasy land so just fun to mention, but the GFS setup is the way you get a strong hurricane into New England. Blocking high preventing escape to the east, incoming trough to the west pulling the system poleward, and a system accelerating into landfall offsetting the cold water. I know it’s fantasy and never going to happen that way but from and upper level pattern depicted that’s how you get a strong storm up north. Essentially slingshot it up through NE

Wish there was a way to award the GFS a weenie tag for that run

As has been said here, the disturbance looks very near to be a TD. Outpacing models to this point. However, shear does not improve from this point through the weekend. Maybe it can be like Earl and fight off the shear enough to intensify in spite of the hostile conditions, but I expect the system to struggle. I do feel confident this will become a TC sooner rather than later. Definitely a land threat

One common theme is development of this system will be a marathon, not a sprint.

Finally- something interesting. @GaWxyou have been all over this one. Thanks for the discussion during the doldrums.

Finished with 0.16” from the thin line of storms that moved through yesterday evening. Brings the mtd total to 2.43”

Max Heat Index today was 96.1…. Thought we were past this!

Rest of this week after tomorrow should be much nicer