Major Hurricane Milton

[Windspeed]

SW quadrant of the CDO might have trended warmer briefly, but cloudtops are cooling again. Here's both AVN and enhanced colorized for your eyes.

[SnowGoose69]

At the very least I’d feel better now if I lived in fort Myers.  You’d need a heck of a forecast error now to take a serious hit so at least the folks who got hit hard by Ian look likely to miss this 

[snowmaker13]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:30 AM, Amped said:

 

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Does that mean Milton will strengthen more just up to landfall? 

[jm1220]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:38 AM, MANDA said:

22Z NDFD wind gust swath across Florida. 

Impressive swath from around Bradenton to Cocoa Beach.    Would spare Orlando the worst of it but will cover a lot of real estate just south of the I4 corridor.  Would produce lots of wind damage and horrendous power outages.

To say nothing of the powerful gusts along the coast in and around Tampa down to Sarasota.

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Really nasty for the Space Coast. Would cause lots of power outages obviously and minor property damage. Surge as well north of the track. 

[USCG RS]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:38 AM, Windspeed said:

SW quadrant of the CDO might have trended warmer briefly, but cloudtops are cooling again. Here's both AVN and enhanced colorized for your eyes.

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Man, thats a lot of lightning in there. Makes me wonder if we about to go down the rabbit hole again..

[AmericanWxFreak]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:30 AM, Amped said:

 

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Still has the idea that the stronger storms end up north and weaker storms end up south. 

[jm1220]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:46 AM, USCG RS said:

Man, thats a lot of lightning in there. Makes me wonder if we about to go down the rabbit hole again..

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Maybe moving more NE again vs ENE. Critical to see how NE it goes and soon for Tampa Bay impact. 

[canderson]

How far are hurricane winds from the center? Asking for family reason

[weatherwiz]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:48 AM, canderson said:

How far are hurricane winds from the center? Asking for family reason

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still 30 miles. TS though out to 140 miles now

[Radtechwxman]

Lightning is still very prolific in the eyewall. Typically don't see that with weakening storms. I haven't seen this much eyewall lightning since Dorian. 

[beanskip]

Looking closely at the 18z Euro, it's tracking right toward the mouth of Tampa Bay but takes a late right turn to come in around Bradenton. It then heads due east for another 3-6 hours, then starts adding a more northerly component. I think the difference between a Tampa Bay direct hit and a Bradenton/Sarasota track is going to be the timing of this turn which pretty much every model has shown happening either pre- or mostly post-landfall. 

[lakeeffectkid383]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:51 AM, Radtechwxman said:

Lightning is still very prolific in the eyewall. Typically don't see that with weakening storms. I haven't seen this much eyewall lightning since Dorian. 

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Helene had 500+ strikes every 5 minutes right before making landfall. 

[weatherwiz]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, jm1220 said:

Maybe moving more NE again vs ENE. Critical to see how NE it goes and soon for Tampa Bay impact. 

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This is probably going down to the final few hours to know exactly where landfall will occur. If I lived in Tampa or around Tampa and elected to ride this one out, I would be sweating bullets. There are likely going to be numerous wobbles and re-positioning of the eye as the storm continues to go through internal structural changes. Not only this but the forward speed and the timing is adding some uncertainty to this as well because now you also need to factor in how/if trough interaction or involvement also influences the track and when any abrupt shifts more ENE occur. 

[RU848789]

I'm assuming the NHC won't lower the storm surge forecasts for the Tampa area until and unless the forecast confidence in a track at least 10-20 miles south of Tampa Bay is very high; probably not until 12-18 hours before landfall, maybe tomorrow at 11 am.  Evacuating "unnecessarily" for a 10-15' storm surge is far less of an issue than dropping the surge forecast now and then having many people not evacuate (or even have some return) and then having the track actually head into TB with 10-15' of surge, causing far more loss of life.  Having spent many years doing risk analysis in the chemical industry, one usually doesn't discount a catastrophic risk impact (high severity) until the probability of that risk being realized becomes quite low and we're not there yet.  

And there are still quite a few 18Z models (GFS, NAM, ICON, RDPS, HWRF, HMON and the HAFs) showing landfall either in Tampa Bay or within 5-10 miles of it, so the probability of a Tampa Bay landfall is still too high to lower the surge forecast, IMO.  

[CheeselandSkies]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, AmericanWxFreak said:

Still has the idea that the stronger storms end up north and weaker storms end up south. 

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I think in this case, north runs more into the shear along/behind the front. As a lot of these storms are, it's gonna be riding a fine line between enhanced upper divergence/baroclinic enhancement; and getting ripped apart.

Absolute worst case scenario for impacts (not likely by any means, but can't be considered off the table, either) is it gets larger following another EWRC, finds the baroclinic sweet spot to maintain intensity at around say low-end C4, AND said sweet spot happens to be JUST far enough north to take the RFQ over Tampa Bay.

[Nibor]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:48 AM, canderson said:

How far are hurricane winds from the center? Asking for family reason

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If in an area with a Hurricane Warning you should expect hurricane force winds.

[olafminesaw]

Wind field starting to expand a bit 

[ineedsnow]

not sure if posted but here's a live wobble tracker

https://www.wfla.com/weather/tracking-the-tropics/live-wobble-tracker-changes-in-hurricane-miltons-path-could-have-huge-impacts/amp/

[Floydbuster]

 

[goctican]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:01 AM, ineedsnow said:

not sure if posted but here's a live wobble tracker

https://www.wfla.com/weather/tracking-the-tropics/live-wobble-tracker-changes-in-hurricane-miltons-path-could-have-huge-impacts/amp/

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Not sure how gimmicky that is but I like it. Thank you. 

The article mentions how, 20 miles off shore, we'll probably know where the wobble finally lands. How do you find out how many miles the front face of Milton is really is, as a hurricane? 

 

 

[weatherwiz]

The flash flooding is going to be disastrous. That is some epic rainfall rates on the NAM over the Tampa area extending northeast towards or just south of Orlando...talking about multiple hours with rates probably exceeding 2''/hour. PWAT values in excess of 3 inches. 

[USCG RS]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:11 AM, goctican said:

Not sure how gimmicky that is but I like it. Thank you. 

The article mentions how, 20 miles off shore, we'll probably know where the wobble finally lands. How do you find out how many miles the front face of Milton is really is, as a hurricane? 

 

 

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"Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from
the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140
miles (220 km)."

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT4+shtml/082359.shtml?

[WxWatcher007]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:12 AM, weatherwiz said:

The flash flooding is going to be disastrous. That is some epic rainfall rates on the NAM over the Tampa area extending northeast towards or just south of Orlando...talking about multiple hours with rates probably exceeding 2''/hour. PWAT values in excess of 3 inches. 

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Hasn’t been much discussion here of the inland flash flood risk but hopefully local folks are getting the message. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:12 AM, weatherwiz said:

The flash flooding is going to be disastrous. That is some epic rainfall rates on the NAM over the Tampa area extending northeast towards or just south of Orlando...talking about multiple hours with rates probably exceeding 2''/hour. PWAT values in excess of 3 inches. 

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Over perpetual wetlands, rivers, streams and canals.  A LF anywhere N of TB would mean storm surge coming in against billions of gallons of runoff coming into the bay. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

  On 10/9/2024 at 1:55 AM, beanskip said:

Looking closely at the 18z Euro, it's tracking right toward the mouth of Tampa Bay but takes a late right turn to come in around Bradenton. It then heads due east for another 3-6 hours, then starts adding a more northerly component. I think the difference between a Tampa Bay direct hit and a Bradenton/Sarasota track is going to be the timing of this turn which pretty much every model has shown happening either pre- or mostly post-landfall. 

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I said the same thing in my final write up.

[gallopinggertie]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:12 AM, weatherwiz said:

The flash flooding is going to be disastrous. That is some epic rainfall rates on the NAM over the Tampa area extending northeast towards or just south of Orlando...talking about multiple hours with rates probably exceeding 2''/hour. PWAT values in excess of 3 inches. 

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Pardon my ignorance, but how common is a rainfall event like this in western Florida? I thought they were used to torrential rains from summer thunderstorms, but that does sound exceptional. 

[pazzo83]

good lord

 

[WxWatcher007]

Latest VDM has a central pressure of 916mb with a 6nm wide eye and a peak FL wind of 142kt.

[Floydbuster]

I am surprised how small Milton still is, I wonder if that could maybe lessen the extent of the storm surge if it doesn't expand the wind field much in the next 24 hours. 

[Torch Tiger]

  On 10/9/2024 at 2:20 AM, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I said the same thing in my final write up.

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Most knew that days ago