NorthHillsWx

From a “look perspective” it’s hard to imagine how a storm could be any stronger presentation wise about 5-8 hours ago. It definitely degraded since recons departed and even more so once recon arrived. A small tight core like Sam has it wouldn’t take much degradation for wind speed to come down quickly, unlike larger storms. There is literally zero hard evidence to support a cat 5 from earlier. However, sat estimates almost always fail to get the exact intensity and have a low bias for tiny storms, like Sam. It would honestly shock me if this didn’t peak at least 140 kts just from the ferocity of that satellite shot and the speed those eyewall towers were moving. Also, the pressure is consistent with a cat 5 storm of this size. That being said, there is zero hard evidence this made it to cat 5 and then does it really matter if it only maintained that intensity for a couple of hours? To us, yes, but NHC issues advisories based on intensity at time of advisory or based on hard evidence between them. Lacking the latter, this is going to stay a 4 in post analysis. Ida has a chance for an upgrade bc there was hard evidence, from wind measurements on land, recon, and pressure that it did reach the threshold. This to me was likely a stronger storm at peak but will be very unlikely to be upgraded without the hard evidence of nonstop recon and ground truth.

It’s really, really difficult to find a more beautiful satellite structure of an Atlantic hurricane than the one we have with Sam right now.

What a beast of a storm

Looks like we may have seen our last rainfall for the month

May be a hurricane by 11 tonight

Finished with 1.20” for the event for a monthly total to date of 3.51”

Finally getting into the good rain. Up to 0.51” and pouring

0.37” yesterday and overnight so far. 2.68” mtd

2.31”

The rain shield is holding strong. That’s 45 more rain drops than we’ve had

Jim Edds' Haiyan video should be right up there with the aforementioned. He was submerged in a pool inside the eyewall. Omg, somehow I missed that. Throw that in there as well! Though not as powerful, Josh’s Odile video is must watch material as it shreds the hotel lobby on camera. Also- the infamous Katrina surge video from Gulfport with the car coming through the lobby. All time great videos for sure

That, Josh’s video from Dorian, and that Mexico Beach video from the condo during Michael are the 3 most intense hurricane videos I know

What’s amazing looking at the extreme damage in grand isle and is that the town itself never actually got into the inner eyewall. It was left kind of in the moat between the concentric eyewalls

0.08” this afternoon from a couple n to s moving showers

For anyone who wants to see what high-end hurricane damage looks like. Reminiscent of Mexico Beach after Michael.

The longer 95L takes to develop, the further south it will track as a weak wave will remain embedded in the tropic easterlies rather than a stacked system with a tendency to gain latitude. This may have impacts down the road in keeping that system from being a “fish” storm. Some of the more northern solutions the last couple days had the system as a developing tropical storm at this point, not a weak wave. If it holds off on development until the area of the Antilles, it will likely hold much further south and west than previous modeling. Guidance has shifted south and westward significantly this cycle given the waves present lack of organization

Neither 95L nor 96L look anywhere close to becoming more organized this morning.

Strong wind shear really prevented this from being a worse flooding situation. Shear was so strong it kept most of the heaviest rainfall over the gulf and has displaced the rain shield well away from the coc, causing less intense bands. Storm slightly over produced in the wind department, several gusts over 90 mph and many hurricane force wind gusts showing up (along with incredibly impressive videos from the landfall area), but really seemed to be significantly over modeled in the rainfall department. Have seen some totals over 14” but they seem to be extremely isolated

Just a normal day at the beach

Very possible this gets upgraded to a hurricane at 11. Current flight has several unflagged SFMR readings of near hurricane force and FL winds near 75 knots

Up to 70 mph pressure down to 988

Make it stop!

What I *think* is going on here is there are two week sub vortices rotating around a larger vorticity maximum between them. I think the coc can likely be determined by the midpoint between these small circulation centers. Likely, this will consolidate into a larger single circulation as the smaller vortices will have a difficult time sustaining themselves within the larger circulation

Good luck with the forecast on this one. This is something we usually don’t see on radar and is usually reserved for formative storms. There are 3 possible centers atm and I have no clue which one will take over. Assuming one does, I believe this storm will make a run at a hurricane before landfall given the eastward shifts, but good luck predicting that given current look

Convection that had temporarily tried to become a formative core looks like it was sheared away from lllc, which may actually be reforming to the East. There’s clearly a strong MLC well to the northeast of the LLC, and this is becoming even more apparent on radar. May have to watch here for another center reformation. Pretty awesome process to watch on radar as the convection quite literally seems to be trying to drag the llc with it