A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!
Friday, April 19, 2019
Hurricane Michael Upgraded to Category 5
Image I screenshot of Hurricane Michael before landfall.
Category 5 Hurricane Michael.
Rarely have I ever seen an eye look so real.
The big news today in the world of Tropical Meteorology is that as expected it might be... Hurricane Michael has been upgraded in retrospect after much analysis to have been a Category 5 Hurricane. A very rare event to have a Category 5 Hurricane that close to land and even rarer to have a Category 5 Hurricane make landfall. Everything has been changed now, all those lists of the top five strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall in the Atlantic Basin. And remember again this was a hurricane season that was forecast by many to be relatively quiet due to cooler than warmer temperatures in the breeding grounds of the Mid Atlantic. This is an excellent example to remind you this season when you read headlines and see that mitigating factors may suppress hurricane activity. They are academic discussions and nothing more because hurricanes happen in real time and only in the rear view mirror can we really know what any said hurricane season is after all the storms have ended and the post analysis has been finished. Again the NHC always goes over the storms after the season and decides whether a downgrade or rare upgrade is in order and in this case Hurricane Michael that seemed to almost take on human like features doing things that no hurricane has ever done before... making landfall in that location that late in the Hurricane Season the hurricane with the eye that seemed so real, so intense has not been upgraded to Category 5.
Obviously the excitement in the meteorology community is real and despite today's wicked weather traipsing across the Deep South and East Coast.... everyone stopped staring at radars to talk Hurricane Michael. The picture I screenshot from my computer shown above is from the blog post when Michael was intensifying and concerns on destruction at landfall were becoming more real, more obvious and more terrifying. Sadly that terror played out and the destruction was as expected if not even stronger than originally thought it would be. You can see the destruction yourself below.
I'm short on time today as I am busy with preparations for Passover as is my family and many of my friends as well as some of my friends who are busy with preparations for Easter Sunday. It's just that time of year to be honest. As much as we worry on climate change to be honest tornadoes and Easter Weekend have come together too many times to list; the two that come to mind are shown below. I'm hoping and praying the weather will come and go without much trouble but wishing doesn't always make it so.
As for me home in Miami after a nice road trip South.
Maria Cat 5 Devastates Dominica Now Cruising on towards Puerto Rico. Very small compact dangerous storm... Jose Going Nowhere Fast But Will Jose Erode the High and Give Maria a Way Out of Making Landfall along the East Coast. If Not... Well Pray Jose Does His Job.
Watching the hurricanes from far away..
..in Ormond Beach.
Always beautiful here.
Maria below is beautiful.
But Maria is deadly.
Link to Discussion for Jose and Maria.
The main part of the discussion is that Maria is going over warm water with low shear and the only intangible on landfall is if Maria will be going through an eye-wall replacement cycle. That's it and that means a truly catastrophic hit on Puerto Rico unless something unforeseen happens. Although much of PR is built better than the smaller islands, when you are talking about a buzz saw category 5 Hurricane moving directly over it you are talking about a variety of homes and geography. Granted the metropolitan areas often have better built homes yet they are often built closer to the water and those structures will be dealing with storm surge of historic proportions at the immediate site where the eye wall makes landfall. Up in the hills, mountains and valleys there will be wide spread flash flooding and possibly mudslides.... etc, etc... What doesn't anyone understand about the word "catastrophic" ??
I've had people tell me they hate hearing that word, it's over used. Well I could describe for you what Marathon looks like and that was North of the eye that ripped apart Big Pine Key and Cudjoe. Marathon in the Florida Keys looks like a nuclear bomb went off .... yet some of the better built properties are still standing. And with all of the military personal and first responders, military aircraft coming in and out it feels like a war zone in all ways. It's bad and Maria will trash PR at best and destroy a good part of the infrastructure at worst. Not to mention loss of life and notice I am not mentioning "death toll" for Irma as it is a moving target. They are still going through home sites, docks, beaches and every inch of the Lower Keys looking for those lost souls who decided to stay and ride out the hurricane. I know that for a fact as my son-in-law was involved in the search .... The death toll in Dominica will be much higher and I can only imagine what it will be in PR where flooding and mudslides in the interior region could cause massive loss of life. I hope not, I really do but it's about as dangerous as it gets. I know after watching a 185 MPH hurricane this seems "weaker" but weak and strong are relative this year.
I want to be clear here there are watches and warnings along the coastline as effects from Jose could have an impact along some areas. Not the center, there barely is a center as it's more extratropical than not, but winds across a large area will have an impact. Especially as Jose is prone to stalling, looping and not going anywhere rapidly. High tides, riptides and beach erosion are concerns. There may be some delays at airports, etc... The big favor that Jose will do for Florida if the models verify is that he erodes the Western edge of the High Pressure allowing Maria to escape and go out to sea. Should that not work for some reason and the escape route doesn't appear then Maria would be trapped under a large high pressure and be moved more to the left where she could come in contact with the East Coast ... more likely but not for certain the Carolinas. If the models are correct and the forecast verifies we can thank Jose the way we can thank Cuba that Irma did not hit South Florida with 185 MPH winds... and as the water is warmest over the Florida Straits and the Gulfstream . . . it's unimaginable but possible that it could have been stronger than 185 MPH. Irma was a very rare hurricane with few analog hurricanes that we can even compare it to. Bryan Norcross said on air he had never seen a hurricane like it .... so let that rattle around in your brain a bit.
Maria size wise and intensity wise is much like Andrew and it can wobble a bit due to eye wall replacement cycles. Time will tell but before we obsess on it's long range track let's pray for the people in it's path in the Virgin Islands (it may go to the left of them ... with luck on their side) and the Island of Puerto Rico. Anyone who stayed up last night listening to live radio reports from Dominica with the Prime Minister posting reports until his roof tore off and he had to be rescued in the lull during the eye knows what the people of Puerto Rico are really facing.
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
