ATL: HELENE - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[Nederlander]

One of the hurricane hunters on X put out a challenge last weekend. Best guess on final landfall location and central pressure wins a patch flown through Helene (guesses had to be in by midnight on Sunday). I guessed St. James Island (due south of Tallahassee) at 936 MB... Looks like that guess could be pretty close...

[MississippiWx]

Eye looks to be contracting on radar...no bueno.

The eye has several mesovorticies rotating around. When these congeal, they often tighten the eye wall, lower the pressure, and increase the wind speed further.

[Travorum]

Eye looks to be contracting on radar...no bueno.

The latest VDM would support that. Eyewall is down to 26nm diameter from 40nm earlier and 55nm back when it was still open.

[eastcoastFL]

NHC nailing the forecast once again and saving an untold number of lives. They’re kinda like super hero’s.

[Beef Stew]

Sorry, but the national hurricane center used the term catastrophic many times in their discussion and I agree with them. It's not just the windspeed. It's the incredible size of the storm.

And the very strong storm surge expected.

Indeed, up to (or maybe even more than) 20 feet of surge is nothing to sneeze out. When was the last time such high estimates were forecast for a CONUS landfall?

If I remember correctly, Laura.

That being said, there is arguably nowhere else in the CONUS that is geographically positioned for more surge inundation than the Big Bend. Idalia, Debby, Easy, the 1896 hurricane, and many others have shown how much surge even small storms are capable of generating in the region, and on less than optimal tides no less. While it's pre-hurdat, what was likely to be a large major hurricane made landfall in the region in 1842, and anecdotally was reported to have had a storm surge of over 25 feet.

[Nimbus]

what time will the peak winds hit Pinellas ??? Now ??

probably when they are coming in off the gulf more directly maybe couple hours till they are really howling out of the southwest near the beaches.

[ScottNAtlanta]

I think we are talking Katrina level surge here. Helene is actually larger in size and the area it is headed for is very surge prone.

[Travorum]

Just got back from a walk down to the intracoastal here in Dunedin, the water is already up to within a foot of overtopping the seawall.

[ScottNAtlanta]

Tampa bay looks like they will have a wind change from the sw coming up in the next hour or so

[Sciencerocks]

[BIFF_THE_UNRULY]

https://i.imgur.com/yUMmL5M.gif

oops i see it. Yes its on NHC path. Ever so slightly east but not game changing

[BIFF_THE_UNRULY]

Tampa bay looks like they will have a wind change from the sw coming up in the next hour or so

my Weather station in Rural Hudson Florida about 2 miles from the coast shows a Gust of 53 mph and an average of 22mph since this morning. Pressure has begun to drop tho finally


Still havent gotten a single drop of Rain

[Zarniwoop]

https://i.imgur.com/yUMmL5M.gif

I know I shouldn’t wobble watch, but that was quite the wobble.

[Charleswachal]

Raw ADT numbers well within the cat 4 strength. She is rapidly intensifying. I would expect a cat 4 at landfall. It is not outside of the realm of possibility for cat 5 but I would tend to believe it will stay under that limit.

[aspen]

Wonder what recon’s doing, if they’re gonna go back in for another center pass or if they’re trying to map out the extent of hurricane-force winds.

[ScottNAtlanta]

They've issued flood warnings in Atlanta for Nancy Creek that runs through some of the most expensive real estate in Atlanta (Buckhead). Comparable to the flood in 1962

[eastcoastFL]

Rain rate is starting to look more impressive at 50mm/Hr

[Charleswachal]

Wonder what recon’s doing, if they’re gonna go back in for another center pass or if they’re trying to map out the extent of hurricane-force winds.

Looks like they are trying to sample the NE quad which is the strongest quad normally. This should give us the highest wind readings yet

[ScottNAtlanta]

Wonder what recon’s doing, if they’re gonna go back in for another center pass or if they’re trying to map out the extent of hurricane-force winds.

Looks like they are trying to sample the NE quad which is the strongest quad normally. This should give us the highest wind readings yet

I'll say that this wind field is MASSIVE

[Category5Kaiju]

Helene looks likely to make a run at 130 mph fairly soon….I’d say a low to mid grade Category 4 by landfall is rather likely