RU848789

I generally understand the nuances of numerical modeling and forecasting and spent many years doing emergency response planning (including for weather) for Merck's Rahway, NJ site, so I get not wanting to possibly confuse the public, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd simply like to know what the NHC knows about landfall in their forecasts. Maybe they could use the model they use for their surge inundation product where the reader has to acknowledge the limitations and caveats associated with use of the tool and provide the landfall data, but only after the reader read a disclaimer on how that point is, at best a guess, and should not be used for planning purposes, per se, given the uncertainties of hurricane track/intensity forecasting or something like that. I don't think providing that is going to significantly affect how the public uses the info, but perhaps I'm wrong about that. Anyway, thanks for the perspective.

Thanks, although I would have no idea how to find that if I didn't know it existed, lol. Bookmarked it...

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, one of my pet peeves with the NHC is them not always providing a location/windspeed/pressure of the landfall point for the center of their track. I know they like to highlight that "users are reminded to not focus on the details of the forecast as there remains significant uncertainty in the eventual track and intensity of Milton" but I still think they should share at least the landfall forecast, as people want to know and without that info, people end up doing their own estimations of landfall location and strength, which is worse, IMO. For example, the 11 pm advisory contains the point off the coast in the map below (27.1N 83.3W), but guessing exactly where exactly landfall will be has some uncertainty as one has to look at the track and eyeball it. It's certainly a bit south of the 5 pm track (the little grey dropped pin was the point NHC gave at 5 pm, i.e., 27.9N 82.6W), which is why I would guess Anna Maria Island, due west of Bradenton, which would mean the storm would still kind of go NE into Tampa Bay, but barely; the 11 pm track represents about a 15 mile shift SE from the track at 5pm (by my eyeball and I'd rather not be relying on my eyeballs, lol) and and another 10-20 mile shift might be enough to spare Tampa the worst surge. The NHC "knows" the landfall point - I just wish they'd share it. As an aside, is there some service out there that actually calculates it?

This may be banter, but I saw this AccuWeather graphic which shows Milton as a Cat 2 hurricane before exiting the east coast of FL. As far as I know, the NHC has not said whether Milton will be Cat 2 or Cat 1 as it exits the east coast of FL. They simply show it being a Cat 3 just after landfall and it being a Cat 1 (85 mph) when it's about 85 miles off the coast. One can guesstimate that it could be Cat 2 (>95 mph) as it reaches the east coast, but that's not the official NHC forecast. I've wished for years that the NHC would explicitly provide the windspeed and pressure data for landfall and exit point from a landmass, but they don't (or if they do I've never seen it). Anyone?

Agree with the intent of your post, but for the record Tomer had retweeted that one, but for some reason that part isn't included in the link that I posted, probably because posting Twitter links that actually embed properly is a black box, lol. https://x.com/burgwx

I assume this is pretty official. 897 mbar. https://x.com/WxTca/status/1843424669959176251

Question for folks/mets who know the model data initialization process. The 18Z model runs (at least GFS, NAM and ICON), which I always thought initialized at 18Z (or 2 pm EDT now) with data from the 18Z time point or at least not much earlier than that, all show the t=0 point with Milton at about 970-980 mbar, when Milton had a pressure of 925 mbar at 12:00 pm EDT today...and it was even as low as 945 mbar at 8 am EDT. Am I missing something?

Tied for 6th strongest, but that's quibbling.

180 mph, 905 mbar... BULLETIN Hurricane Milton Advisory Number 11 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL142024 400 PM CDT Mon Oct 07 2024 ...HURRICANE AND STORM SURGE WARNINGS ISSUED FOR PORTIONS OF THE FLORIDA WEST COAST... ...MILTON POSES AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS THREAT TO FLORIDA AND RESIDENTS ARE URGED TO FOLLOW THE ORDERS OF LOCAL OFFICIALS... SUMMARY OF 400 PM CDT...2100 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...21.8N 90.8W ABOUT 80 MI...125 KM WNW OF PROGRESO MEXICO ABOUT 675 MI...1085 KM SW OF TAMPA FLORIDA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...180 MPH...285 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...E OR 90 DEGREES AT 10 MPH...17 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...905 MB...26.73 INCHES

IMO, people on the central Florida Gulf coast (and even inland a ways from there) should be seriously considering evacuating or at least have a plan to evacuate once Milton's track is nailed down better in the next day or two, given that the center of the forecast track brings a 115-120 mph hurricane directly over Tampa on Wednesday late afternoon/early evening (although the track cone goes from the Big Bend to Marco Island, so a Tampa landfall is not a given, but preparing for a pretty credible worst case is not a bad thing to do). If we have a major hurricane hitting Tampa, the impacts are likely to be substantial to catastrophic for hundreds of thousands of people. For people unaware of Tampa's history with hurricanes, Tampa hasn’t seen a direct hit from a major hurricane since 1921 (and only one other time in recorded history in 1848), when the population was tiny, but for those storms the damage was catastrophic from both the winds and the storm surge. Even Helene, which missed Tampa by ~100 miles (at its closest) still caused the worst storm surge (~7 ft) since the 1921 hurricane, which had ~10’ of surge and the 1841 storm, which was likely a tad weaker than Helene, had an estimated 15’ of surge; and even a glancing blow from Helene killed 11 people in Tampa. 10-15 feet or more of surge and Cat 3 winds are almost unimaginable for modern day Tampa Metro, which now has 3.2MM people vs. ~100K in 1921 and a few thousand in 1848. Tampa's hurricane history is detailed in the link below. And if the forecast storm track and intensity verify, Milton would pass near or over Orlando, too, as a Cat 1/2 hurricane. Talk about a horrific track for Florida. https://www.miamiherald.com/.../hur.../article293362924.html

Just heard from my cousin that she and her family in Asheville are ok (we had all obviously been worried) - took them until now to get to a town that had some power and a working cell tower. Crazy situation, as folks here know.

We need a "love" emoji - so happy to hear this!

Congrats on politicizing this tragic situation.

Looks like it's not possible anymore (it used to be). As one poster in that thread said, it looks like MarkyMark and MuskyMusk are still at each other's throats and we all are collateral damage, lol.

Thanks for sharing your insights and observations/videos/pics - fantastic stuff. And thanks, also, for showing decency and humanity when interacting with people whose lives and livelihoods are at risk and sometimes totally destroyed and not treating them like a photo op. Sad that not all chasers take that approach.

Thought I tried that before and it didn't work; have the same issue on FB, but not two message boards I post to. Trying it below and as I'm pasting the two URL versions, I see exactly what you said about the tweet being visible in the draft post. Edit: it worked! Thanks so much - I had googled how to do this and didn't really get a lot of help. However, that approach doesn't work on Facebook, still - any idea how to embed tweets in FB? Thanks. https://x.com/burgwx/status/1839785589241258454?s=46&t=Nn9Cx92_8118fPdhHPdJHw

Landfall... Hurricane Helene Tropical Cyclone Update NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL092024 1120 PM EDT Thu Sep 26 2024 ...HELENE MAKES LANDFALL IN THE FLORIDA BIG BEND... Based on NWS Doppler radar data, the eye of Helene has made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in the Florida Big Bend region at about 11:10 PM EDT (0310 UTC) just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River. This is about 10 miles (15 km) west-southwest of Perry, Florida. Based on data from Air Force reconnaissance aircraft, the maximum sustained winds are estimated to be 140 mph (225 km/h) and the minimum central pressure is 938 mb (27.70 inches). SUMMARY OF 1110 PM EDT...0310 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...30.0N 83.7W ABOUT 70 MI...115 KM NNW OF CEDAR KEY FLORIDA ABOUT 45 MI...70 KM ESE OF TALLAHASSEE FLORIDA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...140 MPH...225 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 24 MPH...39 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...938 MB...27.70 INCHES

29.9N 83.9W is just a few miles SW of the Big Bend Wildlife Mgmt area, which is SW of Perry...

Hurricane Helene Advisory Number 15 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL092024 1100 PM EDT Thu Sep 26 2024 ...HURRICANE HELENE VERY CLOSE TO MAKING LANDFALL IN THE FLORIDA BIG BEND... ...ACCOMPANIED BY A CATASTROPHIC STORM SURGE AND LIFE-THREATENING WINDS... SUMMARY OF 1100 PM EDT...0300 UTC...INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------- LOCATION...29.9N 83.9W ABOUT 75 MI...120 KM NW OF CEDAR KEY FLORIDA ABOUT 40 MI...70 KM SE OF TALLAHASSEE FLORIDA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...140 MPH...220 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 15 DEGREES AT 24 MPH...39 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...938 MB...27.70 INCHES

Cantore just said between Steinhatchee and Fish Creek, which is due south of Perry. We'll see soon...

Hey - just curious how you get the Twitter post to embed on this site? Pasting the URL below, hasn't been working for me. TIA. https://x.com/ericfisher/status/1839481161082392823?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1839481161082392823|twgr^d62ae3ef18d077e4023272872f8c21d9d1630f69|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanwx.com%2Fbb%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fericfisher%2Fstatus%2F1839481161082392823

This is what the Skyway Bridge in Tampa looked like 5 hours ago right before it was closed - imagine being on that one. Tampa reportedly has broken the storm surge record set with Idalia, too. And Tampa isn't even that close to the storm. And Savannah, GA just had a tornado, hundreds of miles from Helene. A long night and day ahead... https://fxtwitter.com/FHPTampa/status/1839398172684370378 https://x.com/i/status/1839398172684370378 edit: for some reason twitter videos/links aren't pasting as actual embedded videos - anyone know why? Works ok on 2 other forums I post to...

Cat 3... Hurricane Helene Tropical Cyclone Update NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL092024 300 PM EDT Thu Sep 26 2024 ...STORM SURGE AND WINDS INCREASING ALONG THE FLORIDA WEST COAST... ...300 PM EDT POSITION UPDATE... A Weatherflow station at Egmont Channel at the entrance to Tampa Bay recently measured a sustained wind of 50 mph (80 km/h) and a gust to 62 mph (100 km/h). SUMMARY OF 300 PM EDT...1900 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...26.9N 84.8W ABOUT 160 MI...255 KM WSW OF TAMPA FLORIDA ABOUT 195 MI...315 KM S OF APALACHICOLA FLORIDA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...120 MPH...195 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 25 DEGREES AT 20 MPH...31 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...959 MB...28.32 INCHES

I'm talking about landfall, which the vast majority are most interested in.

It's shifted east 15-20 miles...