ATL: MILTON - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[HurricaneRyan]

Just watched video of the Fort Pierce tornado. Jesus Christ. I agree with others that we might have had our first violent tornado spawned by a tropical cyclone since the 1960s.

[blueskies]

Did not anticipate the terrible traffic on I-4 heading west from Lakeland to Tampa yesterday. Mapping applications showed all red. Alternative routes were better for a while, but but eventually became very congested.

Almost 90 % of hotel guests had already left the day before. Anyone who could, left morning after storm. Had all this traffic been waiting somewhere for gas ?

Conditions in north Tampa not good. Even if water hasn't entered homes, water and debris on roads makes access difficult. Many without power, gas shortages, lines at gas stations.

[johngaltfla]

The aerial damage viewer for Milton is now available:
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/milton/index.html

The worst wind damage appears to be on Anna Maria Island/Bradenton Beach, where many roofs have been torn off including the partial collapse of some apartment buildings. I have yet to see much coverage of the damage in this area. The most severe surge is from Venice to Manasota Key.

I've got friends allowed out there, it will take a long time to rebuild. Here's some local news coverage and chaser videos for you of the entire coast:

https://youtu.be/mAJTG1xDdz0?feature=shared

Manasota Key and Grove City:

https://youtu.be/QDSPD1rX8fg?feature=shared

St. Armands/Lido before the water receded:

https://youtu.be/cKxMGfSSEN4?feature=shared

[mpic]

Did not anticipate the terrible traffic on I-4 heading west from Lakeland to Tampa yesterday. Mapping applications showed all red. Alternative routes were better for a while, but but eventually became very congested.

Almost 90 % of hotel guests had already left the day before. Anyone who could, left morning after storm. Had all this traffic been waiting somewhere for gas ?

Conditions in north Tampa not good. Even if water hasn't entered homes, water and debris on roads makes access difficult. Many without power, gas shortages, lines at gas stations.

When we got stuck in Woodville during Rita in 2005, we had used all of our gas to get their via the evac and had to wait for friends to find enough gas cans and gas in Houston to bring us enough to get back home.

[HurricaneBelle]

Made it back home a couple hours ago, only had water intrusion in the back storage room that got it from Debby before, but no standing water (guess it receded) and nothing in the house proper. Lost a couple sections of fence but those were teetering anyway (and are the landlord's problem). House intact except for five roof shingles which made the sacrifice but no roof leaks and power/cable/internet is all a go. Drove down 19 without incident or backup, noticed quite a few long backups in the turn lanes waiting to get into gas stations and bought groceries about halfway down in Homosassa, not wanting to chance it in Pinellas.

[toad strangler]

The NWS MLB office continues to update the track map for the Milton tornado outbreak in their jurisdiction. A jaw dropping day during a one for the ages violent feeder band. My home along with many others were perilously close to these. The local community has been providing great relief to those who took the full fury of these .. as noted, map is not complete yet.

[Stormlover70]

New port Richey here. Never lost power lines were arching pretty bad. We don't know about our home yet.....

Our home is fine. Tree missed us by a few inches.......

[ljmac75]

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/innovation-in ... ne-season/

I guess I missed this if it was released earlier, but apparently a drone released into Milton measured winds of 209 kts at 500 meters above the surface. That's a very big number, which would translate down to a smaller number at 10 meters (don't know what the conversion would be).

[CrazyC83]

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/innovation-insight-and-impact-groundbreaking-research-through-the-2024-hurricane-season/

I guess I missed this if it was released earlier, but apparently a drone released into Milton measured winds of 209 kts at 500 meters above the surface. That's a very big number, which would translate down to a smaller number at 10 meters (don't know what the conversion would be).

That would translate into about 157 kt at the surface, using a .75 conversion ratio (typical for about 1,500 feet). It supports well the peak intensity of 155 kt.

[Travorum]

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/innovation-insight-and-impact-groundbreaking-research-through-the-2024-hurricane-season/

I guess I missed this if it was released earlier, but apparently a drone released into Milton measured winds of 209 kts at 500 meters above the surface. That's a very big number, which would translate down to a smaller number at 10 meters (don't know what the conversion would be).

That would translate into about 157 kt at the surface, using a .75 conversion ratio (typical for about 1,500 feet). It supports well the peak intensity of 155 kt.

Interestingly, the press release does state "inside Category 3 Hurricane Milton, [the drone] recorded record breaking maximum wind speeds of 209 knots at 500 meters" which seems to me to imply that the drone was released prior to the 155kt peak, likely during the one of the passes of the flight the morning of October 7th where FL winds first supported MH intensity -- I believe the first pass supported Cat 3, the second or third Cat 4, and the third or fourth Cat 5. Milton was a Category 5 hurricane five hours after the first pass and was at its 155kt peak ten hours later.

Of course its entirely possible that the Category 3 was just a typo. If that was correct and intentional though, I see a couple of possibilities based on how the drones have operated in the past (most of my info on this comes from Helene). First and most likely is that in Helene the winds measured were 10 second averages, not 1 minute, and that may be the case here. The Durst curve gives a conversion factor of 0.87 for 10s to 1m which corresponds to 182kts at 500m or 136kts at 10m, which is believable for the first recon pass given it didn't sample the quadrant with the wind maximum. Another possibility is that the drone was either released on a later pass (IIRC the drone in Helene was released on either the last or penultimate pass), and/or the drone measured the wind speed towards the end of its 1.5 hour lifespan. The craziest outcome is that Milton was just really that intense way earlier than it was operationally assessed; perhaps the drone flew through a mesovortex that recon missed. If that is the case (big if) and the NHC uses that data in the TCR (bigger if) the wind speed measured wouldn't justify anything above 155kts but could move that peak intensity or the category 5 intensity earlier, perhaps to a synoptic point.

Regardless of any of those caveats any 209kt wind speed measurement is absolutely mind-boggling and these drones are an incredible tool for collecting direct measurements of wind speed data in areas we would otherwise be largely in the dark on. I look forward to their continued and expanded use as well as the analysis and research that comes from their data.

[cycloneye]

The TCR will be very interesting to see when it is released based on the drone discussion above.

[ljmac75]

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/innovation-insight-and-impact-groundbreaking-research-through-the-2024-hurricane-season/

I guess I missed this if it was released earlier, but apparently a drone released into Milton measured winds of 209 kts at 500 meters above the surface. That's a very big number, which would translate down to a smaller number at 10 meters (don't know what the conversion would be).

That would translate into about 157 kt at the surface, using a .75 conversion ratio (typical for about 1,500 feet). It supports well the peak intensity of 155 kt.

Interestingly, the press release does state "inside Category 3 Hurricane Milton, [the drone] recorded record breaking maximum wind speeds of 209 knots at 500 meters" which seems to me to imply that the drone was released prior to the 155kt peak, likely during the one of the passes of the flight the morning of October 7th where FL winds first supported MH intensity -- I believe the first pass supported Cat 3, the second or third Cat 4, and the third or fourth Cat 5. Milton was a Category 5 hurricane five hours after the first pass and was at its 155kt peak ten hours later.

I found another press release containing some of the same info which states that the 209 kt wind was recorded on October 8, so it would have been a category 4 or 5 storm at the time. They may have said "Category 3 Milton" since that's what people associate the landfall in Florida with (or it could just be a typo). I do wonder exactly when the drone collected the data, I wonder if they'll release the all the data it collected alongside the TCR. No word on the averaging period in the article though. The information is in the center of the article where it says "Update."
https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/es/hurricane- ... ollection/