ATL: HELENE - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[Buck]

Well, her staying East benefited the trees in my yard. Pretty windy here, gusts to about TS strength, 5.85 inches of rain so far, plus 2.5 yesterday (basement is flooded).

[CronkPSU]

Wall Street Journal is reporting Helene “rips through Florida with 140 mph winds”.
Did I miss something?
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-env ... s-2818e866

That is what the NHC reported landfall at, that is a good source

[tolakram]

I too have criticism of the NHC forecast track vs what I see, but the difference between questioning an organization and being insulting is thinking I know their intent or why they did something. That's dumb and frankly makes the poster look dumb. It's a fair question, it's even a fair criticism, but try harder not to use the typical word salad of insults as if one knows better.

Saved radar loop, well east of the track. My criticism is this. NHC continues to use 12 hour forecast points and curve fits in between. While each point might be accurate the curve is not, so people turning on the line will see an obvious track discrepancy, even though they've been encouraged not to look at the line for years. 12 hour forecast points is straight out of the 90's and I think it's time to improve the messaging.

Besides all of that, the current storm location IS well east of track.

[SpinnerLover]

[chris_fit]

From the first to the last track before landfall - absolutely incredible work by the NHC. I don't understand any criticism. Always room for improvement, sure. But wow, mind boggling that we have the knowledge and technology to create such an accurate forecast from when Helene wasn't even Helene yet.

[AnnularCane]

Is Helene still supposed to make a westward turn south of me in southwest VA, or might she go right over me? I'm not sure I know where she's supposed to go anymore.

[Pipelines182]

4+ million customers out of power and counting, that's 7 states with significant outages so far. While no doubt the surge was incredibly damaging and even historic/catastrophic for some areas, I think the headline coming of out this storm will be the inland wind damage and flooding. I can't remember ever seeing a tropical system do this much damage inland before over such a large area.

[Pipelines182]

Is Helene still supposed to make a westward turn south of me in southwest VA, or might she go right over me? I'm not sure I know where she's supposed to go anymore.

welcome to the club, I'm not sure if the NHC really knows either at this point. Helene's interaction with the cutoff low to the west has been very poorly modeled so far. Frankly, this type of interaction rarely happens.

[dukeblue219]

Is Helene still supposed to make a westward turn south of me in southwest VA, or might she go right over me? I'm not sure I know where she's supposed to go anymore.

Don't forget it's a big, broad circulation at this point. It doesn't make a ton of difference if it goes right over you or not. The strongest effects can easily be far away from the defined "center" of a post-landfall storm (tornados and floods in particular).

[TTARider]

I too have criticism of the NHC forecast track vs what I see, but the difference between questioning an organization and being insulting is thinking I know their intent or why they did something. That's dumb and frankly makes the poster look dumb. It's a fair question, it's even a fair criticism, but try harder not to use the typical word salad of insults as if one knows better.

Saved radar loop, well east of the track. My criticism is this. NHC continues to use 12 hour forecast points and curve fits in between. While each point might be accurate the curve is not, so people turning on the line will see an obvious track discrepancy, even though they've been encouraged not to look at the line for years. 12 hour forecast points is straight out of the 90's and I think it's time to improve the messaging.

Besides all of that, the current storm location IS well east of track.

It was a head-scratcher there with regards to the 'center' of the cone in the last 24 hours or so... Not really sure what they were seeing that was lending them to push it so far west, but I guess they get paid to do more than just read the models

For what it's worth, the climate is changing, forecasting may be chasing a moving target more than ever these days.

I too am amazed that we were looking at models of this system long before there was any storm or system to speak of.. Modeling really is getting crazy with predicting areas of formation and origination,

[SoupBone]

Is Helene still supposed to make a westward turn south of me in southwest VA, or might she go right over me? I'm not sure I know where she's supposed to go anymore.

I'm not sure either. I got a nasty PM last night for asking about conditions in Chattanooga, you know, the area that was supposed to see flooding conditions. Called me insensitive to those in Florida for asking that question.

[syfr]

From the first to the last track before landfall - absolutely incredible work by the NHC. I don't understand any criticism. Always room for improvement, sure. But wow, mind boggling that we have the knowledge and technology to create such an accurate forecast from when Helene wasn't even Helene yet.

Yeah, I agree with you and don't fully understand the criticism. From the first track to the last, there's not a heck of a lot of difference, especially since Helene wasn't doing much moving 3-4 days ago, and it makes sense that such storms are tougher to model.

Over the days preceding landfall, the exact location moved back and forth a bit but not much.

I always assumed the simplistic Windows 3.1 presentation of the NHC cone and track were that way so that the page loads rapidly (which it always does). Yes, you could add a couple points between the 12 plots, but unless the storm is making huge directional changes, or moving REALLY fast so that the distance delta between 2 points is huge, in a 12 hr period, that's not going to add a lot of "fidelity" to the presentation

[FrontRunner]

https://s11.gifyu.com/images/SAVch.gif

It's interesting how the earliest forecasts while it was in the Caribbean seemed to end up closer to the actual landfall/inland track a bit better than the forecasts once it was in the Gulf.

At any rate, if people want to be unreasonable and expect exact precision in weather forecasting, they're in for a lifetime of disappointment.

[longhorn2004]

So why has Helene not shot off to the Northeast like other storms? Why is it meandering over Tennessee?

[Jr0d]

All I got to say is as bad as the storm is and continues to be for those getting flooded, had it made an unexpected east turn earlier, the surge in Tampa Bay would have been much worse.

Given how densely populated the area is, the human toll likely would have been significant.

The NHC nailed the landfall point...

[Teban54]

From the first to the last track before landfall - absolutely incredible work by the NHC. I don't understand any criticism. Always room for improvement, sure. But wow, mind boggling that we have the knowledge and technology to create such an accurate forecast from when Helene wasn't even Helene yet.

Yeah, I agree with you and don't fully understand the criticism. From the first track to the last, there's not a heck of a lot of difference, especially since Helene wasn't doing much moving 3-4 days ago, and it makes sense that such storms are tougher to model.

Over the days preceding landfall, the exact location moved back and forth a bit but not much.

I always assumed the simplistic Windows 3.1 presentation of the NHC cone and track were that way so that the page loads rapidly (which it always does). Yes, you could add a couple points between the 12 plots, but unless the storm is making huge directional changes, or moving REALLY fast so that the distance delta between 2 points is huge, in a 12 hr period, that's not going to add a lot of "fidelity" to the presentation

The discussion and criticism above were specifically regarding forecasts after landfall. Helene is indeed well east of the forecast position from just 12 hours ago.

[Jr0d]

So why has Helene not shot off to the Northeast like other storms? Why is it meandering over Tennessee?

There is a cutoff low around north Mississippi it is supposed to circle around and get absorbed by....this is different setup than a front coming down and pulling the storm quickly to the northeast.

[sponger]

I too have criticism of the NHC forecast track vs what I see, but the difference between questioning an organization and being insulting is thinking I know their intent or why they did something. That's dumb and frankly makes the poster look dumb. It's a fair question, it's even a fair criticism, but try harder not to use the typical word salad of insults as if one knows better.

Saved radar loop, well east of the track. My criticism is this. NHC continues to use 12 hour forecast points and curve fits in between. While each point might be accurate the curve is not, so people turning on the line will see an obvious track discrepancy, even though they've been encouraged not to look at the line for years. 12 hour forecast points is straight out of the 90's and I think it's time to improve the messaging.

Besides all of that, the current storm location IS well east of track.

It was a head-scratcher there with regards to the 'center' of the cone in the last 24 hours or so... Not really sure what they were seeing that was lending them to push it so far west, but I guess they get paid to do more than just read the models

For what it's worth, the climate is changing, forecasting may be chasing a moving target more than ever these days.

I too am amazed that we were looking at models of this system long before there was any storm or system to speak of.. Modeling really is getting crazy with predicting areas of formation and origination,

The climate is changing, just not the way you think. It's called a Grand Solar Minimum and it will last decades. Also you cannot blame the models, the Icon nailed this track yesterday. The was the NHC's error, not a failure of modeling.

[Powellrm]

I can both feel that the NHC does a fantastic job and also want to ask questions about the inland track choices. I believe I understand the reasons for keeping it the way it was, and also wonder why it still wasn’t shifted east.

I think it’s fair to have the desire to get clarity on decisions made without having to give NHC some sort of scathing rebuke.

But we live in a world of immediacy, where people need immediate answers and information. Give it time, we’ll get more analysis of this event. NHC does a wonderful job.

[REDHurricane]

https://s11.gifyu.com/images/SAVch.gif

It's interesting how the earliest forecasts while it was in the Caribbean seemed to end up closer to the actual landfall/inland track a bit better than the forecasts once it was in the Gulf.

At any rate, if people want to be unreasonable and expect exact precision in weather forecasting, they're in for a lifetime of disappointment.

Exact same thing happened with Ian too...