Ugliest storms ever

[MarioProtVI]

Georges in 1980, a hurricane, in the NW Atlantic. The depression over Texas (Danielle) looked far better after 36-48 hours over land.

Without reading the caption in detail I thought Georges was the one over Texas. Didn't even notice the hurricane at first.

Ditto, it looks like a bona fide hurricane

[MHC Tracking]

Regarding Earl 98 - it probably indeed wasn't a CAT2. The best track intensity was based off of a mere 104kt FL wind reading at 850mb. Had SFMR been made widely available back then it's pretty unlikely that it would record >80kt surface winds due to the system's poor structure unable to translate those FL winds to the surface. In fact recon never reported an eyewall in Earl and its asymmetric wind field resembles more of a squall line than a hurricane.

Earl was moving pretty fast so there was more than likely enough forward speed added to justify Cat 2 intensity.

Bertha in 1996 (east of Florida) is a top contender for me, because for about 12-18 hours you had a completely exposed center, and essentially half a hurricane. In fact, the entire low level eyewall cloud was exposed one afternoon.

https://i.imgur.com/d55oxhY.png

Probably not tbh. While the 104 kt wind at 850mb would usually support ~80 kt, sondes in the storm's rmw are quite underwhelming.
http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/recon ... -995-76-39
http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/recon ... 27-999-76-
http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/recon ... -997-77-42
http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/recon ... 1001-72-40
If taken at face value, these could suggest a conversion factor of .51 or thereabouts, which would support ~55 kt, aligning with KCZ for the reconnaissance observed 985 mb. This would also make sense given sfc obs in the landfall zone supporting 55 kt directly, but given the detrimental affects of land friction etc you could make a case for 60-65. NHC didn't have reliable SFMR data at the time so they of course did the best they could, but in general Earl reminds me of Isaias 2020. Very high winds at flight level with poor mixing.

[MHC Tracking]

Alex may win for ugliest center of a tropical cyclone this year.

Not bad in all honesty, especially for June

[Teban54]

Ian's current structure as a 75 kt hurricane probably qualifies for this post. Says nothing about how it looked and what it did pre-Florida, though.

[Zonacane]

Ian's current structure as a 75 kt hurricane probably qualifies for this post. Says nothing about how it looked and what it did pre-Florida, though.
https://i.postimg.cc/sxTkHkwh/goes16-vis-swir-09-L-202209300437.gif

Zombies don’t usually look pretty

[Hurricaneman]

For hurricanes can we add Nicole

[AnnularCane]

For hurricanes can we add Nicole

Nah, she's pretty.

[Hurricane Mike]

For November, Nicole ain't that bad.

This is a rare event. I believe Nicole will be one of only three November hurricanes to strike Florida in 100 years.

[Teban54]

Hurricane Beryl, as a 115 kt Cat 4

[weeniepatrol]

Jeanne 1980!!! This was an 85-kt category 2 at the time of this image:



Looks like a sheared 40-kt tropical storm

[Teban54]

Zombie Debbie:

[chaser1]

Gotta go with Hammy and Weeniepatrol as the winners. There were so many good entries LOL. For me to narrow it down though, I limited my choice to those storms at Hurricane intensity from about 25N southward (reason being the common dry air or upper-level shear issues with much higher latitude systems especially those transitioning to subtropical or extra tropical). Therefore, my votes went with a tie between Jeanne of 1980 and Floyd from '87 for the truly most butt-ugliest Atlantic basin hurricane presented.

[HurricaneEnzo]

Hurricane John 2024. Regular VIS isn't bad but IR is a mess.

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[WaveBreaking]

Tropical Storm Oscar (2024)

[CycloneSakura]

Tropical Storm Songda 2022. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _0400Z.jpg