ATL: ETA - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[TheStormExpert]

This is going to be a relatively untraditional tropical experience for SFL. Prolonged, sustained, wacky approach and departure, and a sub-tropical structure.

Not an afternoon thunderstorm. I filled up the gas tank on the way home from work. Otherwise I’ve been stocked up on the essentials all season. Thought FL would get away with it this year after being in I think 3 cones prior to Eta without impacts. But 2020.

Definitely going to be Subtropical at landfall. Of course the NHC likely won’t call it that as they never seem to transition fully-tropical cyclones to Subtropical.

One thing that sticks out when compared to the last two seasons is the lack of Subtropical cyclones in 2020 in the Atlantic.

[ElectricStorm]

We can handle this. I don’t foresee Eta being all that bad for South Florida.

If you consider power outages a prolonged period of winds gusts over 55 mph and 10 inches rain no biggie more power to you.

Sounds a bit over the edge to me. 18z GFS is only forecasting 4-6 inches of rain to fall across South Florida. I’m probably not going to shutter up for this one, unless overnight runs get more bullish.

You seem to follow the models a little too closely considering they have been pretty awful this year

[Miami Storm Tracker]

Evening everyone,

I have been on here a good while now. That said the Mod's may bust my ass for this but will take that chance. Each of us has our own perspective on what may or may not happen. If it be it the track or the strength. That is the purpose of this forum, and so be it. We are now getting down to the real time frame no more phantasy land. I need to decide like between tonight and tomorrow, do I shutter the Key Largo house, do we pull the boat off the lift. So any questions with no clear and or correct answerer. So I will wait until the next set of runs, and base the decision on what they show. No easy answer I know, so any of the Pro Mets want to contribute by all means please do.

[StPeteMike]

I’m actually surprised it’s taking Eta this long to get itself together again. We will likely have a TS tomorrow for sure, but I expected a quick reformation to TS strength before the end of Friday. May be good news for Florida.

[Frank2]

The NHC forecaster stuck his neck out a mile in the last discussion, saying this and that is forecast to happen - the depression is barely a depression without a circulation anyone can easily see, so that's a long way from what he was describing.

[TheStormExpert]

I’m actually surprised it’s taking Eta this long to get itself together again. We will likely have a TS tomorrow for sure, but I expected a quick reformation to TS strength before the end of Friday. May be good news for Florida.

Same. Doubt it becomes one either tonight with the current state it looks.

[ElectricStorm]

The NHC forecaster stuck his neck out a mile in the last discussion, saying this and that is forecast to happen - the depression is barely a depression without a circulation anyone can easily see, so that's a long way from what he was describing.

The discussion seems reasonable to me. It takes time for a storm to redevelop after spending over 2 days over mountains... Just because it looks like this now doesn't mean it will look like this in a few days. It will likely be sheared but a mid to strong TS seems pretty likely to me. Heck a Cat 1 wouldn't even surprise me at this point.

[Evil Jeremy]

It's hard to argue against the model consensus for organization and strengthening over the next 48 hours.

[Cat5James]

You can clearly see it’s starting to organize and the vorticity maps prove it.

[Jr0d]

I’m actually surprised it’s taking Eta this long to get itself together again. We will likely have a TS tomorrow for sure, but I expected a quick reformation to TS strength before the end of Friday. May be good news for Florida.

The models were keeping it as a broad low until Saturday morning. Its right on track now. I was expecting it to be upgraded at the 10pm advisory though. I still expect an upgrade at 1am given the satellite presentation improvement.

[got ants?]

I don't understand why a storm, if it's not a Cat 3+ , is always compared to a "summer thunderstorm" in Florida.

Summer thunderstorms are quick; they're in and out in 30-minutes at most. There's some localized street flooding at most and some branches down from a 60-mph wind gust. That's it.

Tropical storms are prolonged, with tons of rain that can bring much more flooding and significant damage.

They are not the same.

You must not be from Florida, or more specifically, south Florida. We have summer storms that come in and throw out a "down burst" and I've had metal shedd blow away, clamshell awnings slam down ( bending metal supports).

My concern with ETA is heavy rain, as we have not only had an extended rainy season, but the past 3 weeks have been daily deluges of 3" or more rains. S significant rain even could be costly. Keep 8n mind, having no mountains, and living on coral, we don't have flash flooding, but with recent rains, we could have significant flooding, into homes/businesses.

[lhpfish]

I don't understand why a storm, if it's not a Cat 3+ , is always compared to a "summer thunderstorm" in Florida.

Summer thunderstorms are quick; they're in and out in 30-minutes at most. There's some localized street flooding at most and some branches down from a 60-mph wind gust. That's it.

Tropical storms are prolonged, with tons of rain that can bring much more flooding and significant damage.

They are not the same.

You must not be from Florida, or more specifically, south Florida. We have summer storms that come in and throw out a "down burst" and I've had metal shedd blow away, clamshell awnings slam down ( bending metal supports).

My concern with ETA is heavy rain, as we have not only had an extended rainy season, but the past 3 weeks have been daily deluges of 3" or more rains. S significant rain even could be costly. Keep 8n mind, having no mountains, and living on coral, we don't have flash flooding, but with recent rains, we could have significant flooding, into homes/businesses.

Winds will wreak havoc on trees and wet soil.

[Hypercane_Kyle]

I don't understand why a storm, if it's not a Cat 3+ , is always compared to a "summer thunderstorm" in Florida.

Summer thunderstorms are quick; they're in and out in 30-minutes at most. There's some localized street flooding at most and some branches down from a 60-mph wind gust. That's it.

Tropical storms are prolonged, with tons of rain that can bring much more flooding and significant damage.

They are not the same.

You must not be from Florida, or more specifically, south Florida. We have summer storms that come in and throw out a "down burst" and I've had metal shedd blow away, clamshell awnings slam down ( bending metal supports).

My concern with ETA is heavy rain, as we have not only had an extended rainy season, but the past 3 weeks have been daily deluges of 3" or more rains. S significant rain even could be costly. Keep 8n mind, having no mountains, and living on coral, we don't have flash flooding, but with recent rains, we could have significant flooding, into homes/businesses.

Uh... I live in Tampa and have for over 15 years.

[fci]

I don't understand why a storm, if it's not a Cat 3+ , is always compared to a "summer thunderstorm" in Florida.

Summer thunderstorms are quick; they're in and out in 30-minutes at most. There's some localized street flooding at most and some branches down from a 60-mph wind gust. That's it.

Tropical storms are prolonged, with tons of rain that can bring much more flooding and significant damage.

They are not the same.

You must not be from Florida, or more specifically, south Florida. We have summer storms that come in and throw out a "down burst" and I've had metal shedd blow away, clamshell awnings slam down ( bending metal supports).

My concern with ETA is heavy rain, as we have not only had an extended rainy season, but the past 3 weeks have been daily deluges of 3" or more rains. S significant rain even could be costly. Keep 8n mind, having no mountains, and living on coral, we don't have flash flooding, but with recent rains, we could have significant flooding, into homes/businesses.

Agreed, flood prone areas in South Florida may have problems with Eta, especially since we have had big bursts of rain in the past few weeks; 3-5 inch deluges overnight a couple of times and a similar amount about a month ago during the day. North of Palm Beach County had some serious flooding and is flood-prone.
But, as a wind event, as others have said; this is probably not going to be a huge deal. Some power outages will occur but when you've been through several down here over the years; Frances, Jeanne, Wilma, David (if you go back); then you can handle TS winds in squalls.
That's just my opinion and also, there seems to be a little tamping down of rain estimates from the 7-10 and possibly 15 inches down to 5-10.

[chaser1]

I’m actually surprised it’s taking Eta this long to get itself together again. We will likely have a TS tomorrow for sure, but I expected a quick reformation to TS strength before the end of Friday. May be good news for Florida.

The models were keeping it as a broad low until Saturday morning. Its right on track now. I was expecting it to be upgraded at the 10pm advisory though. I still expect an upgrade at 1am given the satellite presentation improvement.

That is entirely incorrect. Prior NHC official forecast had "Eta" as a T.S. by early afternoon Friday just north of W. Honduras. I stated mid afternoon today (Friday) that this trough had shown negligible organization and was skeptical that it would look any different by 6Z tonight when supposedly approaching the Cayman Islands. And here we are - this trough looks like an area of disorganized disturbed weather. So now, we'll move the goal-line to tomorrow morning and see. We could very well see a strong T.S. or minimal hurricane in the Florida Straits Sunday night. Let's not lose sight that we might also have little more then a sloppy baroclinic gale.

[Frank2]

Here's the 1 am - no change though the overnight strengthening reference was removed and I agree with chaser1:

ttps://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MI ... 0541.shtml

Bed time...

[Sanibel]

Consolidating...Just depends on how fast...

[Jr0d]

I’m actually surprised it’s taking Eta this long to get itself together again. We will likely have a TS tomorrow for sure, but I expected a quick reformation to TS strength before the end of Friday. May be good news for Florida.

The models were keeping it as a broad low until Saturday morning. Its right on track now. I was expecting it to be upgraded at the 10pm advisory though. I still expect an upgrade at 1am given the satellite presentation improvement.

That is entirely incorrect. Prior NHC official forecast had "Eta" as a T.S. by early afternoon Friday just north of W. Honduras. I stated mid afternoon today (Friday) that this trough had shown negligible organization and was skeptical that it would look any different by 6Z tonight when supposedly approaching the Cayman Islands. And here we are - this trough looks like an area of disorganized disturbed weather. So now, we'll move the goal-line to tomorrow morning and see. We could very well see a strong T.S. or minimal hurricane in the Florida Straits Sunday night. Let's not lose sight that we might also have little more then a sloppy baroclinic gale.

I have been watching every model run for the past week. This is right in line with the computer models 48 hours ago...the low was supposed to reform as a broad area of low pressure late Thursday til now. Saturday as the storm approaches Cuba was when consolidation was supposed to happen. It has moved slower than the NHC forecast ..but as far as position to strength goes, it is behaving as expected so far.

Again, I was looking at model runs not the NHC archive when I wrote that.

We will see what happens tomorrow. With the Upper air recon data going into the models, by this time tomorrow we should have a better idea if the current intensity forecast is on the right track.

[Jr0d]

@ Chaser1

Here is the GFS from Wednesday....a bit more elongated right now but intensity and position is pretty darn good.

[underthwx]

To me, ETA is looking healthier than it did earlier... Is the next advisory at 4 am?