Major Hurricane Irma- STORM MODE

[McQuackleton]

http://diskingdom.com/2017/09/08/hurricane-irma-forces-walt-disney-world-closed-sunday-monday/

Walt Disney World closed on Sunday/Monday. Other parks are also listed in the link.

[Quincy]

8 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Euro ensembles look very close to 00z on the mean. We are stabilizing the track errors.

EPS individual tracks:

[friedmators]

26 minutes ago, Casualbrain said:

Irma's 112 Terrajoule figure courtesy of RMS-HWind - Note at 112 Terrajoules is approximately equal to two Hiroshima atomic bombs.

Venturing OT here but I am assuming that value is qualified with a per/hr or per/min or per/sec? 

 

[Casualbrain]

 

Tjoules=Total storm energy at given moment. At each moment Irma is expending two atom bombs of energy.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[McQuackleton]

May help people understand if their power will go out.

[donsutherland1]

3 minutes ago, Quincy said:

EPS individual tracks:

Even as the run-to-run consistency has improved (0z vs. 12z) and the spread has narrowed, one can also see a lot of uncertainty as it relates to whether Irma will make landfall on Cuba. Around 50% of the ensemble members show Cuba landfall. Around 50% don't. The implications for Florida are potentially large, so there's still plenty of uncertainty.

[andyhb]

5 minutes ago, Quincy said:

EPS individual tracks:

The number of tracks with major impacts to the Tampa metro there really concerns me. I'm going to guess the evacuation there hasn't been as vigorous as the Miami area and they are even more prone to surge damage.

[Crazy4Wx]

If Irma is going to hit Cuba, then she really can't go have many more NW wobbles. Right now, she is almost at 22.5. If she hits 23N before 78 then she isn't going to directly hit Cuba. Looks like she is moving NW over the last couple of frames.

[olafminesaw]

Just now, Crazy4Wx said:

If Irma is going to hit Cuba, then she really can't go have many more NW wobbles. Right now, she is almost at 22.5. If she hits 23N before 78 then she isn't going to hit. Looks like she is moving NW over the last couple of frames.

looks to be tracking with forecast points apart from some wobbles. 

[beanskip]

13 minutes ago, Quincy said:

EPS individual tracks:

What strikes me here is that there is roughly a 50-50 split of members that get Irma around Cape Romano, which would mean a Naples/FM/Tampa landfall. 

[Hoosier]

2 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Even as the run-to-run consistency has improved (0z vs. 12z) and the spread has narrowed, one can also see a lot of uncertainty as it relates to whether Irma will make landfall on Cuba. Around 50% of the ensemble members show Cuba landfall. Around 50% don't. The implications for Florida are potentially large, so there's still plenty of uncertainty.

Indeed.  At this point, the preponderance of guidance would seem to support at least a part of the southern eyewall scraping the shore, if not a technical landfall.  We are really walking a fine line here before even having to consider how much, if any strengthening may occur after it moves away from Cuba.

[TPAwx]

8 minutes ago, andyhb said:

The number of tracks with major impacts to the Tampa metro there really concerns me. I'm going to guess the evacuation there hasn't been as vigorous as the Miami area and they are even more prone to surge damage.

Low lying/adjacent to water were declared at 2 today.  I left at 530 this morning to beat the rush.  Not much urgency among the populace as of late last night.

[Crazy4Wx]

1 minute ago, olafminesaw said:

looks to be tracking with forecast points apart from some wobbles. 

I agree. She is tracking with the forecast points based on the 11am NHC update, which did not have Irma making landfall in Cuba. 

If the 12z Euro were to verify, it would have to stop gaining latitude. Right now it doesn't seem to be doing that. It might in the next hour or two...or it might have begun the NW turn. 

[jasons]

25 minutes ago, lwg8tr0514 said:

And Tampa rarely gets tropical cyclones, last time I think women still wore those garters and stockings.  I am sure a Met could lecture us on climatology and why Tampa not a prime place for a TC to pick on, could be topology, features in the GOM, etc that effect steering currents.  I think Wilma is a good analog once it gets into the Florida Straits diving almost straight north since we are conjecturing here and doing model hugging.

I'm not a Met, but I do have a fair bit of knowledge on this topic since I used to live there (born and raised) and have a lot of friends and relatives down there. They have not had a direct hit since 1921. The reason being is the shape of the coast and the typical angle of approach. Most storms that affect the Tampa area are either crossing over the peninsula from the east, in a weakened state, or if coming from the Gulf, it's usually a sheared slopfest getting captured by a trough. Storms like Charley, Donna, and potentially Irma are rare cases, but because of the northward trajectory parallel to the coast, just the slightest deviation left or right will make a huge difference...as we saw very clearly with Charley. It's just not an easy thing to have a storm moving out of the Gulf in a NNE trajectory, like the 1921 storm, and still under the right conditions for strengthening. But some day, it will happen and when it does, the surge will be enormous out of Tampa Bay. I hope to God Irma doesn't go along the left side of Don's Euro margin he posted. That map made my heart palpitate a bit, because it's a perfect illustration of what could happen if the west trend doesn't stop or re-correct.

[psv88]

Anyone have the actual radar? Looks like the movement has turned west again on the GOES. 

[the ghost of leroy]

8 minutes ago, db306 said:

Strictly my own opinion but looking at satellite there's definitely NW movement and I'm not sure I buy the west coast landfall. 

Let's wait 6 hours. I see it too but microanalyzing movement on half hour scales is madness. 

[jasons]

19 minutes ago, andyhb said:

The number of tracks with major impacts to the Tampa metro there really concerns me. I'm going to guess the evacuation there hasn't been as vigorous as the Miami area and they are even more prone to surge damage.

It hasn't. I have several relatives down there who banked on this hitting Miami. They are all in a surge zone, too. 

ETA: If you research the Tampa Bay area surge potential, it may be about the worst case in the CONUS behind NYC. You could debate all day whether Tampa, NOLA, or NYC is the most surge-prone metro area and still end-up not agreeing on who'd get it the worst.

[Papa Joe]

3 minutes ago, psv88 said:

Anyone have the actual radar? Looks like the movement has turned west again on the GOES. 

From Cuban radar, it appears to be making a slow NW turn

 

http://www.met.inf.cu/asp/genesis.asp?TB0=PLANTILLAS&TB1=RADAR&TB2=../Radar/07Holguin/hlgMAXw01a.gif

Mind that their server is busy and you may get a 404. Keep trying.

[JC-CT]

1 minute ago, jasons said:

It hasn't. I have several relatives down there who banked on this hitting Miami. They are all in a surge zone, too. 

Anecdotally, I know someone who lives a few minutes from Clearwater beach who didn't evacuate.

[psv88]

3 minutes ago, Papa Joe said:

From Cuban radar, it appears to be making a slow NW turn

 

http://www.met.inf.cu/asp/genesis.asp?TB0=PLANTILLAS&TB1=RADAR&TB2=../Radar/07Holguin/hlgMAXw01a.gif

Mind that their server is busy and you may get a 404. Keep trying.

Thank you!

[The Iceman]

9 minutes ago, db306 said:

Strictly my own opinion but looking at satellite there's definitely NW movement and I'm not sure I buy the west coast landfall. 

I agree but much like the poster that was declaring miami clear and out of danger earlier and a guarantee to hit cuba based off of a west wobble it's a good idea to wait a few hours before declaring it it is definitively moving in that direction.

[SnowGoose69]

1 minute ago, The Iceman said:

I agree but much like the poster that was declaring miami clear and out of danger earlier and a guarantee to hit cuba based off of a west wobble it's a good idea to wait a few hours before declaring it it is definitively moving in that direction.

 Remember....many Euro ensemble members and hurricane models had WNW movement today and avoided Cuba and still put it into the West coast 

[Mountain_Patch]

Guys, if Irma's course continues as it stands right now Dan's 50m error may come close to being true.

Lets look at the 12z sep 6 Euro hr 72, and 96. Similarly this matches LEF's assumptions on landfall. If we look at the last to frames of the enclosed gif published previously on this forum it appears Irma is changing direction in a similar fashion to what was on the 6th.  Time will tell.

[JC-CT]

From 5pm ET to 2am ET, the 12z EC OP had essentially zero gain in latitude, taking Irma into Cuba at just about the same latitude it has already achieved. We will know in a few hours.

[Crazy4Wx]

If Irma continues her current motion for the last 3 hours, she will be directly on or even a smidge north (by maybe .1 degree) the 11am NHC forecast point.  

[McQuackleton]

Updated graphic

[Smitty97]

28 minutes ago, friedmators said:

Venturing OT here but I am assuming that value is qualified with a per/hr or per/min or per/sec? 

A joule is 1 Newton of force pushing something 1 meter.  1 J = 1 Nm.   If you bring time into it, you'll have 1 Joule per second.  1 J/s = 1 Watt

 

[Mountain_Patch]

2 minutes ago, AcePuppy said:

Updated graphic

This matches the 12z from the 6th almost perfectly.

[JC-CT]

4 minutes ago, JC-CT said:

From 5pm ET to 2am ET, the 12z EC OP had essentially zero gain in latitude, taking Irma into Cuba at just about the same latitude it has already achieved. We will know in a few hours.

To illustrate:

[Jfreebird]

6 minutes ago, Mountain_Patch said:

Guys, if Irma's course continues as it stands right now Dan's 50m error may come close to being true.

Lets look at the 12z sep 6 Euro hr 72, and 96. Similarly this matches LEF's assumptions on landfall. If we look at the last to frames of the enclosed gif published previously on this forum it appears Irma is changing direction in a similar fashion to what was on the 6th.  Time will tell.

The 18z NAM is picking that up also a shift to the east and a quicker turn to the north and it has it almost exactly where you have it on the 2nd image