aspen wrote:CrazyC83 wrote:Kingarabian wrote:Yeah Harvey was a classic case of never say never and how downcasting can come back to bite. I think a lot of us thought it would crash into Mexico. After the models finally realized it would be picked up 2-3 days before landfall, a lot of people didn't think the stalling scenarios were going to verify. Wrong again. Truly one of the more horrific hurricanes.
Harvey and Maria of 2017 were both truly worst case scenarios. It's amazing there were 2 that year and almost a 3rd.
I can't think of too many other storms that absolutely could not have realistically been topped. If Harvey was stronger or weaker, it would have made little difference in the long run anyway, and in the case of Maria, it was the pre-landfall ERC that sealed Puerto Rico's fate.
While Florida was VERY lucky that Irma went a little further south and weakened due to land interaction with Cuba, it was definitely a worse-case scenario for islands like Barbuda and St Martin. You can’t get much worse than a 155 kt landfall on a tiny speck of an island.
Irma was basically a worst- or near-worst-case scenario everywhere except Florida. Irma made
four (!) separate landfalls as a Cat-5 hurricane: on Barbuda, St. Martin, Virgin Gorda, and Cuba. Irma also struck the southern Bahamas as a borderline Cat-4/-5. Irma maintained Cat-4+ status for an exceptionally long period of time and was also a very large system, so had it missed Cuba it would have proved catastrophic in South Florida. A north-northwestward trajectory across Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Lake Okeechobee, Orlando, and Jacksonville, as was projected by the NHC and models at several points, would have easily been the costliest solution in American history, given an expected MSW of ≥ 135 kt at landfall.