NATL: MELISSA - Hurricane - Discussion

[WeatherBoy2000]

It's getting hard to see what is movement and what is caused by shear

I think the NHC summed up Melissa's movement pretty well in the latest advisory:

For all intents and purposes, Melissa is nearly stationary over the
north-central Caribbean Sea.

[cheezyWXguy]

Clearly a lot of reorganization going on this morning. Center relocations are making things confusing, but overall the system looks much healthier than yesterday and the whole envelope is rotating pretty aggressively on satellite. Convection starting to appear on the western side of the envelope too. Conditions are becoming more favorable, everything still seems to be on track for this to become a major.

[GCANE]

Visible Satellite showing rapid convergence at the mid-levels.
This will work down to the surface before sunset.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/sat ... roduct=vis

[GCANE]

 https://x.com/AndyHazelton/status/1981723101730648084

[GCANE]

 https://x.com/volcaholic1/status/1981732882029658272

[sasha_B]

Melissa's raw T# on the UW-CIMSS page jumped from 2.2 to 3.6 with the identification of the new center, as it's now back under the CDO. Let's see if it can stay there this time.

[cheezyWXguy]

Visible Satellite showing rapid convergence at the mid-levels.
This will work down to the surface before sunset.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/sat ... roduct=vis

I wouldn’t be surprised if this drill down process were attempting to take place right now, that mlc looks vigorous, especially with upper level outflow beginning to increase radially from the center of that main burst. The current llc centered on the nw side of this burst seems to be losing influence. I wonder how long it will be before recon starts seeing evidence of this process.

[aspen]

11am cone now shows a 130 kt landfall in Jamaica.

[GCANE]

Seeing radial fingers on IR now.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/sat ... product=ir

[GCANE]

Hopefully there is an EWRC underway while on approach to Jamaica

[ScottNAtlanta]

Visible Satellite showing rapid convergence at the mid-levels.
This will work down to the surface before sunset.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/sat ... roduct=vis

I wouldn’t be surprised if this drill down process were attempting to take place right now, that mlc looks vigorous, especially with upper level outflow beginning to increase radially from the center of that main burst. The current llc centered on the nw side of this burst seems to be losing influence. I wonder how long it will be before recon starts seeing evidence of this process.

Recon really is hitting that area. They've looped around and are going back to it

[GCANE]

Massive helicity on Water Vapor imagery.

https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=r ... =undefined

[ljmac75]

11am cone now shows a 130 kt landfall in Jamaica.

If this verifies this would be the strongest landfalling hurricane on record in Jamaica.

[GCANE]

 https://x.com/WeatherMonitors/status/1981720259221434833

[Teban54]

11am cone now shows a 130 kt landfall in Jamaica.

If this verifies this would be the strongest landfalling hurricane on record in Jamaica.

The advisory also had an ominous note about why:

Every single Google DeepMind member shows the
system become a Category 4 hurricane or higher, and the uncertainty
is more related on the timing of when RI occurs. [...] The latest NHC intensity forecast is
on the higher end of the model solutions, but more or less in line
with the latest GDMI guidance.

[cycloneye]

Hey folks. The winds are going up now as the AF plane continues the mission.

Peak Flight-Level Winds: 59kt at 15:58z
Peak SFMR: 58kt at 15:57z

[sasha_B]

Recon is observing 50～60 kt flight-level winds, and Melissa's satellite presentation is still improving. If that trend persists, I think it's quite possible that the NHC will go with 45 kts on the 18z advisory, which would be in line with their forecasts from last night.

[Sanibel]

Looks like it survived the Caribbean Graveyard (to say the least)...

[zzzh]

Extrap pressure down to 999.5mb

[Sciencerocks]