ATL: HELENE - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[canes92]

Overall Tampa is again dodging the bullet. In this case maybe even a cannon. Iam just hoping water doesn’t enter homes. Difference of 10 miles eastern right now could be difference of garage getting lapped vs having inches of water throughout the floors. Also hoping we don’t get power outages. Irma left us without power for a week and it really sucked.

Tampa will never get another hurricane again.

[Zonacane]

Helene still dealing with mid-level dry air, those aren't RH values that produce a major hurricane.

[xironman]

saved loop - this does not look like a storm that is having trouble intensifying.

https://i.imgur.com/QyvOTg0.gif

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

It will be intensifying into landfall, that and the huge (where did that come from in September?) cutoff low adding baroclinic enhancement to the system should make TS force winds penetrate deep inland.

[Blown Away]

Meanwhile in the GOM…

[tolakram]

Overall Tampa is again dodging the bullet. In this case maybe even a cannon. Iam just hoping water doesn’t enter homes. Difference of 10 miles eastern right now could be difference of garage getting lapped vs having inches of water throughout the floors. Also hoping we don’t get power outages. Irma left us without power for a week and it really sucked.

Tampa will never get another hurricane again.

The US will never get hit by a major hurricane again.
The big bend area of Florida will never get hit by a hurricane again.
Tampa will never get hit by hurricane again.

Congrats for making it to the list.

[FLLurker32]

From my good friend Pro Met T Scott:

Your boys are TOO FAR WEST with their landfall, Deni.
T. Scott believes this will PASS EAST of Apalachee Bay; NOT WEST.

2 Vort. Lobes circulating the base of the upper low/trough 1st heads SE from coastal MS/AL at 7 AM this morning. This should result in the first turn N-NE. 2nd vort. lobe comes this afternoon, emanating EASTward from Western AL/Cstl AL/SE LA bootip. diving Eastward.

The natural gravitation towards STEEP DEEPENING and strengthening will also tend to reflect a right-ward CURVE to the Northeast.

("Where abouts, T. Scott?") Central Taylor County coastline, near Dekle Beach, FL.

Only thing I do agree upon, with your favorite NHC boyz, is the STAUNCH bold prediction of a Cat. 4 135 mph hurricane.
AND that is a BOLD, GUTSY prediction BECAUSE IF you examine the ATCF 00Z suite, 9/26, NONE of them go above 115 mph, except an old, deprecated statistical model DRCL.

All of our Mets in North Central FL have been saying similar. They’ve had to ride a fine line of sharing the NHC official track but also the social responsibility of preparing viewers for the impact of a slight East shift.

Doesn’t matter on the grand scale, but for those of us closer to the west coast as it comes in it can be the difference between 40mph vs. 80mph winds.

[ElectricStorm]

Still not much in terms of pressure drops with 962mb extrap. Looks to be holding steady with a large dry slot developing on the SE side

[Travorum]

SAR frustratingly missing the eastern eyewall but still measured 95kts in the part of the NE quadrant it captured, 4 hours ago:

Platform: RCM-3
Acquisition Date: 2024-09-26 11:50:06 UTC
Storm Name: AL092024 / HELENE
Storm ID: AL09
Storm Center Longitude: -85.861
Storm Center Latitude: 24.721
Incidence Angle (Degrees): 20.702
Quadrant 1 NE VMax (kts): 95.12
Quadrant 2 SE VMax (kts): 79.61
Quadrant 3 SW VMax (kts): 70.36
Quadrant 4 NW VMax (kts): 82.92
RMax (nmi): 18.00 - 32.00

[TomballEd]

The wobbles in stronger hurricanes are called, IIRC (and spelling ir correctly) are trochoidal wobbles. The mean motion is in a certain direction, but there will be small little loops along the way. It is when a wobble becomes a trend, not a wobble, that concerns about a shift in the track should begin.

[NDG]

12z GFS also shifted slightly east, to the Taylor/Dixie County line.

[Sanibel]

Loop Current boosting vs Gulf Syndrome...

[FrontRunner]

From my good friend Pro Met T Scott:

Your boys are TOO FAR WEST with their landfall, Deni.
T. Scott believes this will PASS EAST of Apalachee Bay; NOT WEST.

2 Vort. Lobes circulating the base of the upper low/trough 1st heads SE from coastal MS/AL at 7 AM this morning. This should result in the first turn N-NE. 2nd vort. lobe comes this afternoon, emanating EASTward from Western AL/Cstl AL/SE LA bootip. diving Eastward.

The natural gravitation towards STEEP DEEPENING and strengthening will also tend to reflect a right-ward CURVE to the Northeast.

("Where abouts, T. Scott?") Central Taylor County coastline, near Dekle Beach, FL.

Only thing I do agree upon, with your favorite NHC boyz, is the STAUNCH bold prediction of a Cat. 4 135 mph hurricane.
AND that is a BOLD, GUTSY prediction BECAUSE IF you examine the ATCF 00Z suite, 9/26, NONE of them go above 115 mph, except an old, deprecated statistical model DRCL.

All of our Mets in North Central FL have been saying similar. They’ve had to ride a fine line of sharing the NHC official track but also the social responsibility of preparing viewers for the impact of a slight East shift.

Doesn’t matter on the grand scale, but for those of us closer to the west coast as it comes in it can be the difference between 40mph vs. 80mph winds.

If you're north of Anclote, you've already been warned about the likelihood of 80 mph winds. If you're north of Englewood, you've already been told about the possibility of 80 mph winds.

[jdjaguar]

Overall Tampa is again dodging the bullet. In this case maybe even a cannon. Iam just hoping water doesn’t enter homes. Difference of 10 miles eastern right now could be difference of garage getting lapped vs having inches of water throughout the floors. Also hoping we don’t get power outages. Irma left us without power for a week and it really sucked.

Water is already a foot deep in homes at Indian Rocks per my son

[Frank P]

[longhorn2004]

Is the grey area around the eye dry air being sucked in?

[psyclone]

Overall Tampa is again dodging the bullet. In this case maybe even a cannon. Iam just hoping water doesn’t enter homes. Difference of 10 miles eastern right now could be difference of garage getting lapped vs having inches of water throughout the floors. Also hoping we don’t get power outages. Irma left us without power for a week and it really sucked.

Water is already a foot deep in homes at Indian Rocks per my son

This is likely to be a substantial water event on the west coast...water rise and large battering waves are going to hammer our beaches

[tolakram]

Is the grey area around the eye dry air being sucked in?

Cold cloud tops, see the scale on the right? Dry air would be lack of convection at the top of the scale.

[Nimbus]

From my good friend Pro Met T Scott:

All of our Mets in North Central FL have been saying similar. They’ve had to ride a fine line of sharing the NHC official track but also the social responsibility of preparing viewers for the impact of a slight East shift.

Doesn’t matter on the grand scale, but for those of us closer to the west coast as it comes in it can be the difference between 40mph vs. 80mph winds.

If you're north of Anclote, you've already been warned about the likelihood of 80 mph winds. If you're north of Englewood, you've already been told about the possibility of 80 mph winds.

Flight level winds are higher than what the buoys are experiencing.
*currently* Buoy 42026 shown with the flag is seeing 54 knot gusts which is 62 mph.
Helena is still intensifying though so I will be watching buoy 42036 for SSE winds

[Weatherboy1]

That extremely deep and circular core of storms has almost wrapped around the eye. That’s going to signal a final round of serious intensification unfortunately IMO

[johngaltfla]

12z GFS also shifted slightly east, to the Taylor/Dixie County line.

Like I've said all week, Cedar Key to Steinhatchee area. Which is what the ICON model called for. I think the recent motion indicates that might just validate.