10/09/2024 - Hurricane Milton

[Greg Campbell]

Hey, thanks! That's a nice trick Levi does! I figured out Crtl + Left Mouse + Mouse Drag draws the line and generates the pop-up.
What other treasures are hidden on his page???

 

[William Monfredo]

Yet another nighttime landfall for Florida? I think like a camera thinks, always wondering what's the light doing now?
And if this above scenario plays out, there's not going to be much illumination, simply not good for getting decent photos & video.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The outer band tornado aspect of Milton is one that slipped past me. It might have prompted a trip for that alone had I been paying more attention to it. Some high-end parameters rarely seen in the Florida peninsula are setting up for today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1843981532329136400

 

[William Monfredo]

I like NOAA graphics like this showing the expansion of the tropical-storm-force winds over the last few days.
Also, I've spent a good deal of time in Seminole, Florida, so I'm keeping a close watch on this situation.

 

[William Monfredo]

The outer band tornado aspect of Milton is one that slipped past me...Some high-end parameters rarely seen in the Florida peninsula are setting up for today.

I see what you mean. This Tampa-radar image at ~ 2 p.m. EST tells some of the story with tornado warnings indicated by the red polygons.

 

[William Monfredo]

10:40 p.m. EST, interaction between Hurricane Milton, jet streak, and frontal boundary creating enhanced (blue) wind field, from Tampa radar.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Can anyone provide a link to an “official” max wind gust map for Milton? I have seen widely varying graphics from different news sources. One shows nothing above 100 mph, one shows several in the low 100s, e.g. 105, another shows a few high-end like 125.

We often see much lower observed winds than expected. Here are a couple of good articles about why.

Hurricane Winds at Landfall: Why Is It They Seem to Fall Short?

For a variety of reasons, land-based observations seldom live up to a hurricane’s Saffir-Simpson ranking at landfall.

www.wunderground.com

Hurricane Winds at Landfall: A Measurement Challenge

Mobile radars and mesoscale networks are helping bolster the amount of observations collected during landfalling hurricanes. For a variety of reasons, these observations can fall short of the hurricane's Saffir-Simpson rating at landfall.

www.wunderground.com

I am not minimizing the damage caused by Milton, but I suspect it underperformed relative to forecast. This is just a hypothesis, and the professional mets here can tell me I am full of it, but I think there was an element of preserving continuity in public messaging, knowing that the storm would weaken, certainly mentioning that, yet keeping the worst case scenario highly visible, understandably not wanting to “play chicken” with a monster like that and say “yeah don't worry, it’s going to get sheared apart before it makes landfall.”

 

[Dan Robinson]

This might be similar to what we see with higher-end 06z SPC outlooks that stay at the same level through 1630z even after morning data reveals the setup has been trashed. 36 hours out, the models were in fairly good agreement of Milton eroding to a “halfacane” prior to landfall.

Like the SPC cases, it’s a combination of messaging consistency coupled with the relatively primitive state our science is in regarding forecasting the intensity of *anything* - snowstorms, tornado outbreaks and pretty much everything else. It’s entirely possible that Milton would have defied model consensus as we’ve seen happen many times - I figure they’re always going to err on the side of caution until our forecasting skill advances to allow more confidence.

Re wind measurements, I haven’t seen any others unless some of the chaser or research crews managed to record something higher.

 

[JamesCaruso]

This might be similar to what we see with higher-end 06z SPC outlooks that stay at the same level through 1630z even after morning data reveals the setup has been trashed. 36 hours out, the models were in fairly good agreement of Milton eroding to a “halfacane” prior to landfall.

Like the SPC cases, it’s a combination of messaging consistency coupled with the relatively primitive state our science is in regarding forecasting the intensity of *anything* - snowstorms, tornado outbreaks and pretty much everything else. It’s entirely possible that Milton would have defied model consensus as we’ve seen happen many times - I figure they’re always going to err on the side of caution until our forecasting skill advances to allow more confidence.

Re wind measurements, I haven’t seen any others unless some of the chaser or research crews managed to record something higher.

Yes, I’ve seen that same continuity issue in SPC forecasts as you describe. What’s interesting to me though is that in NWS AFDs for snowstorms in the Philadelphia area, I have quite often seen the forecast explicitly mention that continuity is being kept in the public forecast despite a recent change in the model trends. But I have never seen SPC do that in its outlooks. I think I may have seen NHC do it with track, but don’t believe I have seen them do it with intensity - and certainly not this time with Milton. They did generally mention the possibility of weakening, but there was nothing as explicit as “we think it’s going to weaken but are not changing the public forecast” like I have seen in AFDs talking about snowstorms (I’m paraphrasing of course, that’s not the exact language I’ve seen).

These communication issues and considerations are interesting to me; the concept of balancing precision with simplicity. In other words, the most technically accurate communication is not always the most clear or effective communication for the audience… I apply some of this to my own role as a CFO when I forecast financial outcomes to various constituencies.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

This would seem to be one of those instance where it's really a catch-22 given the sheer number of people who evacuated to avoid the storm. If you change the forecast you're almost inviting people to come back early and there would very likely be some who would drive right back in to harms way. On the flip side, if it doesn't end up strong as forecasted, getting those people to evacuate next time may not be so easy.

Probably better to just send a consistent message and get some egg on your face from the weather weenies than to send a corrected forecast and encourage people to make poor decisions after reacting to initial expectations. I can see pulling back on tornado days, etc. but with hurricanes it would be tough to say "Looks like it won't be as strong as we thought".

 

[Sean Ramsey]

And speaking of messaging, it looks like we've reached the "Chase a Hurricane in a Car for its Entirety" phase of life. I don't remember this being a thing until recently, but there are quite a few live streams where we can watch chasers drive around in a Cat-3 or Cat-4 from the dash of their vehicle, which the last couple of hurricanes haven't appeared all that strong at landfall so there hasn't been much issue it seems to do it.

It makes me wonder if the public seeing it in real time on YT will embolden them to stick around more or create a "It can't be that bad, these guys just drive around in them" type of mentality when it comes to these storms. I certainly find myself thinking it's not that bad at all while watching.

Maybe I'm just behind the times and this has been going on for years and I'm just catching up to the party, or maybe it's just the evolution where we pull back the curtain on something we hadn't seen much of in years past.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The past couple of hurricanes, chasers have gotten away with being out during the eyewall only because the winds were Cat 3 at best. For a true Cat 4 or 5, doing that will result in some serious damage. The air is filled with debris. I was out in the very beginning of Michael's eyewall for only a few minutes and nearly had the front cowling of the car ripped off with a lot of new scratches and dents. I was lucky I didn’t lose a window.

 

[James K]

"It can't be that bad, these guys just drive around in them" type of mentality when it comes to these storms. I certainly find myself thinking it's not that bad at all while watching.

I was watching a few YT streams on the last 2 storms myself, and thinking the same thing about the 'eyewall intercept' : "that doesn't look all that bad"... but also thinking "these guys are a bit crazy playing out on that" (which honestly with some of those guys looked like what they were doing - just horsing around .lol. ) and the cynical side of me thinking along the lines of "what if a piece of sheetmetal/plywood/branch/etc came loose & flew across right where they are". Because afterall its not the wind that'll get you, its all the crap in the wind.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Milton behaved exactly as I *guessed.* Front picked it up and sent it in early. This was the only reason I chased it, figuring there would be some opportunities for daylight cinematography. Tornadoes were an issue, but I finally gave up trying to track where they were popping up. There comes a time when you cannot worry about instant tornadoes that are almost impossible to see. I'll post footage soon.

 

[Warren Faidley]

From my social media post on 10-10-24: RE: Remote camera lost during Hurricane Milton's storm surge.

Remote one (R1) from Hurricane Milton has been found! Not only was it found, but it was found on a road 2 miles inland from Vanderbilt Beach! CollierCounty employees Omar Rodriguez and Daniel Burke found the GoPro camera and Refuel Pack this AM and used the contact info on the data card to message me. The camera (and mounting bracket) is heavy and does not float so the odds were astronomical for it to be found. The card was intact and it has great TL video footage, recording until a tree fell on the gate post it was mounted to, dislodging the camera. (See still frame below). Thanks Omar and Daniel! Now I'm off to buy a lottery ticket!