Hurricane Maria

[jburns]

1 hour ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

The most experienced hurricane chasers in our hemisphere were on the ground there and their reports and footage suggests CAT 3 damage from my vantage point. 

They are staying in the major hotels in the best-built part of the country. They have not ventured out very far from their base at this point. You need to stop downplaying this until we get a more widespread assessment of the damage. I hope you are correct but my gut tells me you are not. Let's wait and see before you end up like Shepard Smith.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Re: Maria track.....are the GGEM and NAVGEM really horrible with tropical systems? I've read here countless times that we should never even bother looking at those models in terms of tropics. I only mention it because both clearly weaken Jose quicker, re-establish a ridge, and thus going to take Maria in the East Coast it appears. Should they be completely discarded or should we use them for hints irt Jose weakening so rapidly (not exact Maria track verbatim)?

[Mountain_Patch]

Set this as the mark when people rush back to Maria by sunday morning.

[wxmx]

Maria up to 110 kts and 955mb

[MJO812]

27 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Re: Maria track.....are the GGEM and NAVGEM really horrible with tropical systems? I've read here countless times that we should never even bother looking at those models in terms of tropics. I only mention it because both clearly weaken Jose quicker, re-establish a ridge, and thus going to take Maria in the East Coast it appears. Should they be completely discarded or should we use them for hints irt Jose weakening so rapidly (not exact Maria track verbatim)?

Gefs are also west of 12z and closer to the coast

[jojo762]

Didn't see the data set from the NHC website... but looks like roughly 120-125kt FL winds in the NW quadrant of Maria per latest recon pass, southeast quad about the same at flight level.

[Dunkman]

41 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Re: Maria track.....are the GGEM and NAVGEM really horrible with tropical systems? I've read here countless times that we should never even bother looking at those models in terms of tropics. I only mention it because both clearly weaken Jose quicker, re-establish a ridge, and thus going to take Maria in the East Coast it appears. Should they be completely discarded or should we use them for hints irt Jose weakening so rapidly (not exact Maria track verbatim)?

I mean yeah they're pretty awful but the idea that Jose could dissipate more quickly isn't unreasonable. When Jose does dissipate however there isn't a lot of reason to think that the ridge will just suddenly build back in and shove Maria west. The Euro keeps Jose around for days longer than the GFS does and despite that Maria is actually closer to the coast on the Euro than the GFS before getting kicked out.

[HarveyLeonardFan]

47 minutes ago, jburns said:

They are staying in the major hotels in the best-built part of the country. They have not ventured out very far from their base at this point. You need to stop downplaying this until we get a more widespread assessment of the damage. I hope you are correct but my gut tells me you are not. Let's wait and see before you end up like Shepard Smith.

Josh Morgerman is one of the most experienced hurricane observers on planet earth.  He was covering the hurricane for satellite weather provider Weather Nation.  In the footage he provided and in his narrative reports I do not see evidence of well built structures being totally destroyed as was the case in south dade county during Andrew. I stand by my assertion that Puerto Rico was hammered by the affects of a strong category 3 hurricane. I expect the Caribbean metropolis of san juan to weather this hurricane quite well and I don't see a devastating effect on tourism.

[jburns]

3 minutes ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

Josh Morgerman is one of the most experienced hurricane observers on planet earth.  He was covering the hurricane for satellite weather provider Weather Nation.  In the footage he provided and in his narrative reports I do not see evidence of well built structures being totally destroyed as was the case in south dade county during Andrew. I stand by my assertion that Puerto Rico was hammered by the affects of a strong category 3 hurricane. I expect the Caribbean metropolis of san juan to weather this hurricane quite well and I don't see a devastating effect on tourism.

You might be correct.  Who wouldn't want to spend a week or two in the tropics without electricity?

 You are not Josh. You saw a bit of footage and made a general assumption. It doesn't work like that.  You are like the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. One grabbed the trunk and said it was like a big snake. The second grabbed a leg and said it was like a tree. The third felt its side and said it was like a wall.  

[HarveyLeonardFan]

21 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

Gefs are also west of 12z and closer to the coast

It's a tough slog to get Maria or any hurricane to the Northeast coast.  We are due however since there have been only three landfalling hurricanes to strike the Northeast directly in the last 57 years.  We don't have accurate records, so perhaps this is historically outside the climo norm.

[hudsonvalley21]

23 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

Gefs are also west of 12z and closer to the coast

That trough will be the tough player. It's a foot race between Maria and it. 

[ryanjn]

When measurements are taken, the hurricane's max wind is at flight level right? Maria was a cat 5 and then a cat 4 for landfall on PR, possibly a cat 3 according to some people here going by damage. What are we going by to determine what cat x damage is? Is it the damage that occurs when flights measure cat x winds or are we going by damage on the ground/actual measured sfc winds similar to the F scale? Seems like with damage on the ground is often slightly lower than max winds measured at flight level, which would make sense. So when the average cane is measured a cat 5 at flight level it will rarely produce these winds at ground level, especially inland once winds come into contact with the friction layer. 

[Regan]

Bernie Rayno just did an interesting scope. 

[HarveyLeonardFan]

2 minutes ago, jburns said:

You might be correct.  Who wouldn't want to spend a week or two in the tropics without electricity?

 You are not Josh. You saw a bit of footage and made a general assumption. It doesn't work like that.  You are like the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. One grabbed the trunk and said it was like a big snake. The second grabbed a leg and said it was like a tree. The third felt its side and said it was like a wall.  

I have tremendous respect for Josh and all his peers like Mike Theiss.  Without their images and reportage I wouldn't be able to make such a declaration.  I'm not necessarily downplaying Maria.  I'm just saying that in terms of sheer power as far as Puerto rico is concerned it's not comparable to Andrew

[jburns]

2 minutes ago, ryanjn said:

When measurements are taken, the hurricane's max wind is at flight level right? Maria was a cat 5 and then a cat 4 for landfall on PR, possibly a cat 3 according to some people here going by damage. What are we going by to determine what cat x damage is? Is it the damage that occurs when flights measure cat x winds or are we going by damage on the ground/actual measured sfc winds similar to the F scale? Seems like with damage on the ground is often slightly lower than max winds measured at flight level, which would make sense. So when the average cane is measured a cat 5 at flight level it will rarely produce these winds at ground level, especially inland once winds come into contact with the friction layer. 

Hurricanes are rated by ground level winds.

[Kevin Reilly]

Here is my thinking on Maria comes north slows and stalls a bit off of the North Carolina Coast then the trough comes in from the west and Maria begins to exit off ENE from North Carolina or east of Virginia Beach.  

[Regan]

 

[Coopdog]

3 minutes ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

I have tremendous respect for Josh and all his peers like Mike Theiss.  Without their images and reportage I wouldn't be able to make such a declaration.  I'm not necessarily downplaying Maria.  I'm just saying that in terms of sheer power as far as Puerto rico is concerned it's not comparable to Andrew

Nobody said it was Andrew...OP asked for info on storm damage outside of SJ. There has been little to no info outside of San Juan. 

[jburns]

1 minute ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

I have tremendous respect for Josh and all his peers like Mike Theiss.  Without their images and reportage I wouldn't be able to make such a declaration.  I'm not necessarily downplaying Maria.  I'm just saying that in terms of sheer power as far as Puerto rico is concerned it's not comparable to Andrew

This isn't about Josh. I respect him as well. My problem is you and what you are inferring from severely limited data and then basically using Josh as a reference.  And yes, you are downplaying Maria. I know Andrew impressed you but the type of damage you describe was in one fairly narrow swath through the homestead area.  Andrew was a small cane size wise. 

[Dunkman]

9 minutes ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

I have tremendous respect for Josh and all his peers like Mike Theiss.  Without their images and reportage I wouldn't be able to make such a declaration.  I'm not necessarily downplaying Maria.  I'm just saying that in terms of sheer power as far as Puerto rico is concerned it's not comparable to Andrew

Most category 5 storms don't have the wind damage that Andrew did right at the core. I don't know if mesovortices have ever been proven as why Andrew's damage was so severe but it had something extra going on. I think I saw a tweet that Josh put this in his top 5 storms. I don't know the context of that tweet but he's definitely been in way more than 5 category 4-5 storms.

edit to link tweet

 

[Baroclinic Zone]

14 minutes ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

It's a tough slog to get Maria or any hurricane to the Northeast coast.  We are due however since there have been only three landfalling hurricanes to strike the Northeast directly in the last 57 years.  We don't have accurate records, so perhaps this is historically outside the climo norm.

It's these types of posts are being deleted and why members are getting 5ppd or suspended.  These are not the threads to gossip or "shoot the ****".  This thread is for fact based discussion regarding the actual storm.  Take this BS to the Tropics Banter Thread or back to a local subforum.

[BxEngine]

13 minutes ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

I have tremendous respect for Josh and all his peers like Mike Theiss.  Without their images and reportage I wouldn't be able to make such a declaration.  I'm not necessarily downplaying Maria.  I'm just saying that in terms of sheer power as far as Puerto rico is concerned it's not comparable to Andrew

Well yeah. Comparing a cat 4 to a cat 5 will often yield different results....

[Paragon]

1 hour ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

Josh Morgerman is one of the most experienced hurricane observers on planet earth.  He was covering the hurricane for satellite weather provider Weather Nation.  In the footage he provided and in his narrative reports I do not see evidence of well built structures being totally destroyed as was the case in south dade county during Andrew. I stand by my assertion that Puerto Rico was hammered by the affects of a strong category 3 hurricane. I expect the Caribbean metropolis of san juan to weather this hurricane quite well and I don't see a devastating effect on tourism.

You seem like a nice guy, but you're off the mark here.  Six months of no electricity is a huge deal.  Outside of that, so is 37 inches of rain in less than two days!  Especially with the higher elevations there, that is a recipe for disastrous landslides.  I know Josh pretty well, and I'm sure he wouldn't be downplaying the catastrophic impact this storm had.  It's also characteristic of these type of events for the full scope of the damage to not be realized for awhile- at least a few weeks.  Especially in rural areas.

As far as Cat 3 vs Cat 4 vs Cat 5.  Honestly, it's a catastrophe regardless of the category.  Personally I feel that it was a Cat 4 even if the 155 mph landfall intensity was a bit generous.  A little method I use to determine maximum landfall intensity (assuming that the maximum landfall wind is never actually measured) is that whatever the maximum gust that is measured, is the maximum sustained wind for the landfalling system (this has worked out for a number of systems, including Harvey and Irma.)  I believe the maximum gust that was measured was 140 mph- so in my opinion this was probably a 140 mph landfalling Cat 4.  Cat 5 wind gusts for elevated regions of course.

[WxReese]

The forecasts from the GFS, CMC, and EURO have been fairly consistent thus far. The real test comes the next day or two when the CMC has Maria flirting with the Turks and Caicos while the GFS and EURO keep it well east of them. We'd have to see a rather significant shift west tonight for the CMC's forecasts to verify. 

GFS: 

 

EURO

CMC: 

[winterymix]

With satellite animation, NW aspect of inner eye wall looks to be eroding perhaps from dry air ingestion

and/or upwelling of cooler ocean temperatures.    With so much major hurricane traffic, latent heat of the

west Atlantic is being effectively mixed out.

[ncforecaster89]

Concerning all this discussion regarding estimated/presumed wind speeds and categorical damage relative to Maria's intensity, I would add that each hurricane is unique and there's not necessarily a one to one correlation between Recon estimated MSW at the surface and the actual winds that occur on land.  

In most cases, and in general, one should expect to see wind gusts equal to the MSW value contained in the NHC advisory in the area of the RMW, as the advisory intensity is the absolute maximum estimated surface wind found anywhere in the storm; which is a single point.   

OTOH, there have been much weaker hurricanes (such as Katrina and Irma), which were also weakening at their respective landfalls, but generated extreme wind gusts that far exceeded the typical sustained to wind gust ratio.  

Taking into consideration various factors such as how an EWRC might effect wind transport from FLvl to the surface, land friction, influences of orography and topography, an objects exposure to the strongest winds, and the quality and durability of said onjects, are just a few reasons why we shouldn't presume a one to one correlation between the NHC advisory MSW and the damage that occurs or similar assumptions comparing storms of similar intensity.         

Although one can reasonably argue that Maria may have weakened  below 135 kt at landfall (for which I agree), I think all the respective data strongly suggests that Maria was most certainly still a very powerful category-four hurricane, regardless of the extent or severity of the damage that has been left in its wake.    

[bobbutts]

This was sort of a backdoor hit for San Juan.  Even though they were in the right front, the storm had to go 30+ miles over hilly terrain before reaching San Jose.  I don't know how to begin trying to calculate how much, but that will definitely temper the winds some.

[NycStormChaser]

1 hour ago, HarveyLeonardFan said:

Josh Morgerman is one of the most experienced hurricane observers on planet earth.  He was covering the hurricane for satellite weather provider Weather Nation.  In the footage he provided and in his narrative reports I do not see evidence of well built structures being totally destroyed as was the case in south dade county during Andrew. I stand by my assertion that Puerto Rico was hammered by the affects of a strong category 3 hurricane. I expect the Caribbean metropolis of san juan to weather this hurricane quite well and I don't see a devastating effect on tourism.

I have alot of family and friends there. It will absolutely be devastating. 

[Paragon]

4 minutes ago, ncforecaster89 said:

Concerning all this discussion regarding estimated/presumed wind speeds and categorical damage relative to Maria's intensity, I would add that each hurricane is unique and there's not necessarily a one to one correlation between Recon estimated MSW at the surface and the actual winds that occur on land.  

In most cases, and in general, one should expect to see wind gusts equal to the MSW value contained in the NHC advisory in the area of the RMW, as the advisory intensity is the absolute maximum estimated surface wind found anywhere in the storm; which is a single point.   

OTOH, there have been much weaker hurricanes (such as Katrina and Irma), which were also weakening at their respective landfalls, but generated extreme wind gusts that far exceeded the typical sustained to wind gust ratio.  

Taking into consideration various factors such as how an EWRC might effect wind transport from FLvl to the surface, land friction, influences of orography and topography, an objects exposure to the strongest winds, and the quality and durability of said onjects, are just a few reasons why we shouldn't presume a one to one correlation between the NHC advisory MSW and the damage that occurs or similar assumptions comparing storms of similar intensity.         

Although one can reasonably argue that Maria may have weakened a little below 135 kt at landfall, I think all the respective data strongly suggests that Maria was most certainly still a very powerful category-four hurricane, regardless of the extent or severity of the damage that has been left in its wake.    

Plus the surge generated (especially with Katrina) was a Cat 5-type surge since it had spent so much time as a Cat 5 when it strengthened over the Gulf Loop.

I find the measured wind gust-maximum sustained wind relationship fascinating.  Do you have any data on Harvey's maximum wind gusts?  I had heard they exceeded 140 at Rockport.   

Anyway with regards to Irma and Maria- I remember that we had a 112 sustained 142 gust with Irma, which is why that little rule of thumb I applied earlier projected an estimated 140 sustained Cat 4 at landfall.  With Maria we had a 137 gust on PR and a 140 gust on a small island just east of PR, so you'd get a similar value for landfall strength.

 

[donsutherland1]

Earlier today, the CMC showed Hurricane Maria making landfall in eastern North Carolina and then tracking north-northwestward into Virginia. However, that outcome was the result of the model's forecasting complete dissipation of Tropical Storm Jose by 72 hours. Early dissipation of Jose would increase prospects for Maria's making landfall, as there would be much less weakness in the ridging to its north. Its the development of more expansive ridging that leads to Maria's north-northwestward track to landfall on the CMC. A stronger Jose would contribute to Maria's staying offshore.

Neither the GFS nor ECMWF show Jose's dissipation by 72 hours. The ECMWF is the strongest with Jose and it maintains a remnant low through 120 hours. 

At present, Jose is slowly weakening. The gradual weakening should continue even as Jose undergoes extratropical transition. Nevertheless, on account of Jose's still expansive circulation--which remains larger than that of the far more intense Maria--it will take some time for the storm to wind down. As a result, a solution between the GFS and ECMWF is more likely than the CMC's landfall idea. The majority of EPS and GEFS ensemble members support that outcome. 

In the meantime, Maria has continued to head a shade west of due northwest in recent hours. A gradual turn more toward the north will likely commence tomorrow afternoon or evening as it reaches the edge of a weak ridge to its northeast. In the longer-term, in part due to the synoptic impact of Jose's persistence, Maria will very likely turn away from the Eastern Seaboard.

Finally, several recent runs of the GFS have shown the development of a tropical system in the Caribbean near the end of that model's forecast range. The area in which the model has hinted at development is one associated with a high probability of systems that make U.S. landfall, so that may be something to watch for following Maria's likely departure out into the Atlantic during the next 7-10 days.