Major Hurricane Delta

[40/70 Benchmark]

49 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

100-105mph at landfall would be my guess.

Yea, agree. I could see a bit higher, but not  much. My final range was 100-115mph...first guess on Monday was 85-100mph, which wasn't bad for that range...especially considering that I also correctly predicted the explosion to cat 4 status  in the nw Caribbean.

[dan11295]

Seems like it is going a bit west of track? Yet to start moving east of north per radar. That turn should be occurring very shortly.

[olafminesaw]

16 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

Seems like it is going a bit west of track? Yet to start moving east of north per radar. That turn should be occurring very shortly.

Seems to have stalled out a bit the past few frames. I'm guessing that indicates the turn is happening

[Prospero]

On radar

[Windspeed]

I've seen eyewalls look a lot worse. Delta seems to be holding its own right now. Surface layer temps drop off a few degrees Celsius from this point forward. However, divergence over the system and poleward mass evacuation of air above 250 hPa is increasing as well. That may help sustain lapse rates to avoid rapid weakening. As has been discussed to death however, VWS is affecting Delta, and that should increase, but not presently enough that the core is overly tilted just yet. That may happen by this evening however. I'd say a borderline Cat 1/2, 90-100 mph landfall this evening is a good call.

[Windspeed]

Some bad flooding down in the Yucatán.

[dan11295]

sustained TS winds at Galveston last hour. As has been stated before, probably more of a surge threat ultimately, though you will have a lot of power outages, TS/Cat 1 type damage from large wind field. Doubt you get any sustained Hurricane winds reported on land with weakening storm and no stations at landfall point.

[Windspeed]

Visible satellite since daybreak..

[Prospero]

13 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

sustained TS winds at Galveston last hour. As has been stated before, probably more of a surge threat ultimately, though you will have a lot of power outages, TS/Cat 1 type damage from large wind field. Doubt you get any sustained Hurricane winds reported on land with weakening storm and no stations at landfall point.

I've been watching the SailFlow wind reports and the winds in Galveston (gust 49mph so far) are stronger than Laura was. Beta did kick up a gust of 54.
 

On the Freeport Bouy they had a gust of 60mph this morning. I thought maybe that was the peak this season, then saw that with Hanna it was 154mph. Not sure how I missed that back then.

Freeport Bouy

Delta 10/9/20
Peak gust 60mph

Beta 9/21/20
Peak gust 49mph

Laura 8/26/20
Peak gust 40mph

Hanna 7/25/20
Peak gust 154mph

[olafminesaw]

The NHC track ticked west. Makes sense with the turn to the east delayed by a few hours. Lake charles now at a 60% chance of hurricane force sustained winds. Probably good news from a surge perspective. Will hit low population areas

[Prospero]

25 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

Doubt you get any sustained Hurricane winds reported on land with weakening storm and no stations at landfall point.

Cameron is still up. never went down:

It had a peak gust of 117 on August 27th with Laura.

 

 

[jm1220]

Radar from what I see is going half-acane which means dry air is intruding into the core. It’s probably a cat 2 now. 

[Floydbuster]

I think Delta is holding together quite well on radar. Not a Katrina, but certainly a bad lashing coming for Louisiana.

[the ghost of leroy]

I don’t know why any of us had the fantasy that this was going to come in as anything but a cat 1, maybe fake cat 2. 

[olafminesaw]

Current trajectory puts landfall just east of Cameron. Maybe 10 miles east of Laura

[Windspeed]

Unfortunately it does look like the northern semicircle of the half-moon eyewall is heading right towards the Lake Charles area unless it can take a more eastward vector in its slightly E of N motion.

[olafminesaw]

14 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

Unfortunately it does look like the northern semicircle of the half-moon eyewall is heading right towards the Lake Charles area unless it can take a more eastward vector in its slightly E of N motion.
 

I think it will hit lake charles with the western portion and at least western Lafayette with the eastern portion. Goes to show how much bigger this is than Laura

[dan11295]

What kind of winds can blue roofs withstand? Many damaged homes in the Lake Charles area have them at the moment. 47 mph gust at LCH last hour. 4-5' surge currently in SW LA.

You see the effects of the dry air and shear eroding the core. I think a high Cat 1 in reality at landfall is most likely. Northern eyewall is ~4-5 hours from land maybe. Last recon was 966 mb w/25 kt wind, so 963-964 mb. SFMR would support 80-85 kt

[Windspeed]

Vortex is starting to look tilted on radar. Low level echoes in the eastern eyeband versus mid level convection gradually displacing to the east. Looks like VWS is starting to win the battle.

[Radtechwxman]

Carl Parker on TWC just said hurricane hunters getting much lower winds than 115mph in northern eyewall. Guessing we see a downgrade to cat 2 at 1pm

[dan11295]

3 minutes ago, StormChaser4Life said:

Carl Parker on TWC just said hurricane hunters getting much lower winds than 115mph in northern eyewall. Guessing we see a downgrade to cat 2 at 1pm

This wasn't a cat 3 at 10 am. Core will be coming ashore in 2-3 hours. 963 mb 110 mph at 1 pm. Still think that is generous.

[Radtechwxman]

1 minute ago, dan11295 said:

This wasn't a cat 3 at 11 am. Core will be coming ashore in 2-3 hours. 

Well NHC had the intensity at cat 3 but probably wasn't looking at the satellite and wind data. Guessing it will landfall at 100-105

[MSUgulfcoaster]

Can someone post the link to the interactive water levels map? It has different sites all along the coast that you can click on. Can’t find it in my favorites. Thanks. 

[MSUgulfcoaster]

1 minute ago, WxWatcher007 said:

When that core collapsed in the southern Gulf that was the ballgame on a landfalling major.

Yep. 

[MSUgulfcoaster]

Repost to get this on the current page. 
 

Can someone post the link to the interactive water levels map? It has different sites all along the coast that you can click on. Can’t find it in my favorites. Thanks. 

[dan11295]

Which is a good thing, SW LA has already had 1 major hurricane this year, they certainly didn't need another. As it is this is very disruptive to anyone in that area trying to recover from Laura.

[skierinvermont]

The size of this will make it almost as bad as Laura 

[jm1220]

21 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

When that core collapsed in the southern Gulf that was the ballgame on a landfalling major.

The models last night were also showing a pretty hostile environment for it to move into-lots of dry air, increasing shear and cooler water. There was a Brownsville sounding another poster showed that already had increasing shear heading into the storm last night. Might end up a cat 1 by landfall. That’s NOT to say it won’t be very impactful still. 

[Moderately Unstable]

 

1 hour ago, olafminesaw said:

I think it will hit lake charles with the western portion and at least western Lafayette with the eastern portion. Goes to show how much bigger this is than Laura

Actually, Laura was a bigger storm. TWC did a direct overlay a couple hours ago, the hurricane force wind field, and the TS wind field, were larger at landfall with Laura. Delta is still an above average sized hurricane though. The storm is tracking at a different angle and speed, that is why different areas are going to see the eye. With laura the eye came straight in, rather than diagonally. 

 

W.r.t the landfalling major thing--I don't think almost anyone thought this would hold up as a cat 3 that well given the hostile environment. The consensus was upper 2, it may end up mid or low 2, so, not that far off the mark. We are so used to seeing strengthening landfalling cyclones the last few years in pristine environments that one that behaves in a weakening manner is almost beyond comprehension and lends itself to forecasting a high intensity bias. The nhc, most people on here, figured it would be a cat 3 in the middle gulf--it was--and would drop intensity on approach to the coast--which it is doing. E.g., this isn't earth shattering and unexpected. It would have been surprising if it HAD stayed together given that the entirety of the guidance weakened it to cat 1/2 at landfall. Looking at the satellite and radar presentation though, that seems to be too little, too late in terms of impacts (which also is as expected). I think 100 at landfall is probable, though it may be marked at 105, however I think the highest observed gusts will be mid 90s because I don't think the odds are high of an observing station being perfectly situated along the coast to capture the absolute max winds this thing produces anywhere and obviously once inland you immediately deal with viscosity effects that bring any storms wind speeds down, regardless of cat + weakening trends and SFMR measurements are lower than the estimates based on FL winds. I can see from the radar that Beaumont, Cameron, and Lake Charles, are already seeing damaging winds and flooding rain probably entering into and damaging already damaged structures. 

 

MU

 

[dan11295]

I wonder how well all that plywood will hold up on the Capital One Building in Lake Charles. As mentioned above, you have a lot of compromised structures in that area. This is very similar to the Frances/Jeanne situation in Florida, two different hurricanes making landfall in almost the same spot.