Tropical cyclone tracking thread

[Ted$8roadFan]

The Big Bend area's last hurricane with a direct impact was Easy in 1950.

[1995hoo]

Not a good scene on I-275:

[roadman65]

https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/live-news/live-hurricane-idalia-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-3-storm/1574324
At 10 am the storm crossed I-10 west of Lee, but heavy winds in Perry were reported and storm surges in Cedar Key and Tarpon Springs not in the eye path.

[Alex]

That seen along I-275 on the Howard Frankland Bridge was similar along U.S. 92 (Gandy Boulevard) and SR 60 (Courtney Campbell Causeway). Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa was also closed due to storm surge levels not seen since Hurricane Elena in 1985.

How Bayshore Boulevard at Hyde Park in Tampa normally looks:



How it looked yesterday due to the storm surge from Hurricane Idalia:

[route56]

T. D. 13 has spun up: Looking to be a big one.


iPhone

[Dough4872]

Tropical Storm Lee has now formed, this could become a category 4 hurricane and may threaten the East Coast. Gonna have to watch this one for the next several days.

[triplemultiplex]

Lee's taking it's time out there, 'deciding' which way to go next week.

This sentence in the 1100 update on Lee caught my attention:

Both HAFS models forecast Lee to exceed 150 kt within the next 2 days, and even HCCA brings
the hurricane above the category 5 threshold.

So wow, not only is Lee forecast to reach Cat 5, but maybe even exceed it? 
Fingers crossed this one stays over open water.

[DriverDave]

As of now the models say it will reach 155 mph peak winds, which is 2 mph short of Category 5 (157 mph winds).

[PColumbus73]

As of now the models say it will reach 155 mph peak winds, which is 2 mph short of Category 5 (157 mph winds).

I think they don't forecast Category 5 hurricanes unless it's a near certainty, maybe to avoid spooking the general public.

[DriverDave]

Was just watching the news and the display was too blurry to see the wind speed at each point in time. But it was projected to briefly hit a cat 5 while still far out in the ocean.
Actually they just said now 165 mph winds by tomorrow.

[Ted$8roadFan]

As of now, the impact on land (if any) will be towards the end of next week.

[bing101]

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/another-hurricane-will-impact-san-diego-weather-this-weekend/3302174/


Hurricane Jova is a storm of interest off the Southern California coast.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/hurricane-jova-expected-to-bring-high-surf-to-southern-california/

[epzik8]

Looks like no impacts from Lee to the east coast aside from big waves...for now...

[Dough4872]

Looks like no impacts from Lee to the east coast aside from big waves...for now...

Many of the models show it heading toward Atlantic Canada and possibly New England.

[triplemultiplex]

Lee currently aiming for the Bay of Fundy where it'll be near that hurricane/tropical storm cutoff in terms of intensity when it arrives this weekend.
Probably going to lose the fall leaves a little early in some parts of Maine and the Maritimes this year.

[Ted$8roadFan]

We're under tropical storm watch here in Eastern New England, particularly the coastal areas. Not likely to get a direct hit, but the potential exists for storm surge.

[US 89]

Lee is going to be a huge storm by the time it gets up to the northeast. So even though the center is probably going to make landfall somewhere in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia per latest models, impacts will extend very far from the center. Should mostly be limited to wind and rain though for most of the US. The only areas under a storm surge watch now are Cape Cod and Nantucket (though of course that may change). Hurricane watch for the eastern Maine coast closer to the center.

[triplemultiplex]

I'm amused that Hurricane Nigel looks to be taking aim straight for the British Isles since Nigel is such an uber British name.

[Dough4872]

Tropical Storm Ophelia has formed and is planned to make landfall in North Carolina tonight and bring a wet weekend to much of the Mid-Atlantic states.

[route56]

A nightmare scenario is unfolding for southern Mexico this evening with rapidly intensifying Otis approaching the coastline.  Satellite images show that Otis has continued to intensify [...] The initial wind speed is set to 140 kt as a blend of these values, making Otis a Category 5 hurricane.  Otis has explosively  intensified 95 kt during the past 24 hours, a mark only exceeded in modern times by Patricia in 2015."

Is it too late to dispatch Jim Cantore?

[US 89]

Otis intensified an insane 60 kt (70 mph) in just 12 hours from 12 to 00 UTC (8am to 8pm EDT). That is the second fastest rate of intensification ever seen in the Eastern Pacific, behind only Hurricane Patricia from 2015. And we know how that turned out.

What's worse is that all of our computer models absolutely whiffed on this one. Barely any of them showed any strengthening at all today, much less to the category 5 monster it is now. This is truly an absolute worst case scenario as it appears to be headed straight for Acapulco, which has a metropolitan area of over 1 million. Because the models performed so poorly, they've had barely any time to prepare for anything stronger than a minimal hurricane. They also have essentially zero history with strong hurricanes in this part of Mexico, so there is no local knowledge of what to expect and nothing is going to be built for anything close to this.

This is fascinating from a meteorological standpoint in terms of the rapid strengthening and how poorly the models did, but this has the potential to be one of the worst natural disasters in recent years. Hopefully they are spared the worst of it.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Otis intensified an insane 60 kt (70 mph) in just 12 hours from 12 to 00 UTC (8am to 8pm EDT). That is the second fastest rate of intensification ever seen in the Eastern Pacific, behind only Hurricane Patricia from 2015. And we know how that turned out.

What's worse is that all of our computer models absolutely whiffed on this one. Barely any of them showed any strengthening at all today, much less to the category 5 monster it is now. This is truly an absolute worst case scenario as it appears to be headed straight for Acapulco, which has a metropolitan area of over 1 million. Because the models performed so poorly, they've had barely any time to prepare for anything stronger than a minimal hurricane. They also have essentially zero history with strong hurricanes in this part of Mexico, so there is no local knowledge of what to expect and nothing is going to be built for anything close to this.

This is fascinating from a meteorological standpoint in terms of the rapid strengthening and how poorly the models did, but this has the potential to be one of the worst natural disasters in recent years. Hopefully they are spared the worst of it.

What makes the Otis situation even worse is that Acapulco has never been affected by anything anywhere close to what Otis became. The strongest hurricane on record to affect the Acapulco metro area before now was a Category 1 hurricane with 75 kt winds in 1951.

The damage photos are starting to make their way online and it's about as catastrophic as we all imagined it would be. They got hit hard.

[PColumbus73]

Current death toll from Hurricane Otis stands at 27.

The after-action report from Hurricane Otis would be interesting, I can't think of a recent example where a hurricane blindsided forecasters like this.

[US 89]

This was almost certainly the greatest failure of numerical weather prediction in at least the past 20 years. People are going to get their PhDs studying what went wrong here.

[bing101]

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/death-toll-mexico-devastating-hurricane-otis-rises-39-2023-10-28/




Here is more from Mexico the current death toll at 39.