Tracking hurricane Milton and its category rating

[Trying2Learn]

TL;DR Summary

how to track the cat of a hurricane

I tend to enjoy tracking hurricanes on my own, in my spare time.

I have noted how Hurricane Milton sped up quickly from a 1 over land to a 2, 3 and then 4, then 5.
Then, down to 4.
Then, back up to 5
Now, back to 4.

Does anyone know of a site that, say, shows the position of the hurricane, as it moves and then it lights up the category as it moves?

For example, I noted it went down to 4 when sheared by the Yucatan peninsula.
Then back up to 5.
And after a few hours, the inner eye is less defined, and now it is 4 again.

I just want to see the category overlap iwth the position and how much time between changes.

 

[Astronuc]

TL;DR Summary: how to track the cat of a hurricane

And after a few hours, the inner eye is less defined, and now it is 4 again.

Milton is back to Cat 5 with sustained winds of 165 mph (265 kmph).

NOAA's National Hurricane Center puts outs frequent updates for each hurricane.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/150217.shtml?cone

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/212734.shtml?expCone#contents

ZCZC MIAPWSAT4 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM

HURRICANE MILTON WIND SPEED PROBABILITIES NUMBER 15
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL142024
2100 UTC TUE OCT 08 2024

AT 2100Z THE CENTER OF HURRICANE MILTON WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE
22.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 87.5 WEST WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
145 KTS...165 MPH...270 KM/H.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2024/al14/al142024.wndprb.015.shtml?

Graphics archive - https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2024/MILTON_graphics.php
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2024/MILTON_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line

 

[Astronuc]

ps - https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/h...category-2-hurricane-watch-florida-gulf-coast
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/h...-packing-180-mph-sustained-winds-path-florida

Reports have mentioned Hurricane Milton has 175 to 180 mph sustained winds (282 to 280 kmph). Milton is expected to weaken somewhat as it approaches Florida's west coast. Storm surge along the coast ahead of the hurricane could be 12 to 15 feet (3.7-4.6 m). Rainfall may be 12-15 inches (30-38 cm) in some areas.

 

[nsaspook]

I'll repost this link here. https://rammb-slider.cira.colostate...s=rammb-slider&draw_color=FFD700&draw_width=6

GOES-19 Preliminary, Non-Operational Data. High resolution images

 

[Astronuc]

The Canadians are watching Milton as well.

https://news.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-season-ramps-back-atlantic-131925546.html

 

[nsaspook]

 

[berkeman]

It looks like that lower left one keeps going offline; it's bouncing all over the place and then freezes every few seconds. Any bets on how long it takes to fully crash?

 

[DaveC426913]

Does anyone know of a site that, say, shows the position of the hurricane, as it moves and then it lights up the category as it moves?

For example, I noted it went down to 4 when sheared by the Yucatan peninsula.
Then back up to 5.
And after a few hours, the inner eye is less defined, and now it is 4 again.

I just want to see the category overlap iwth the position and how much time between changes.

You could make this yourself with a bit of JavaScript.
Simply render a map of the Caribbean and build an array, each element containing lat/long/cat. and overlay numbered icons based on xy coords.

 

[berkeman]

Oh great, now Milton is spawning tornadoes in its path...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/09/weather/video/milton-tornado-florida-digvid

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here is the live cam I am watching

 

[berkeman]

It looks like the good news is that the damage and death toll from hurricane Milton have been lower than anticipated. It also looks like we dodged a bullet at Tropicana Stadium (home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team). It was set up to serve as a shelter and staging area for first responders, with around 1000 cots set up on the field of the covered ballpark to house the first responders:

Unfortunately, Milton had other plans for the roof of the stadium, and it was torn off by the hurricane overnight. Luckily there were no first responders staged there yet, and only a minimal stadium operation staff who were able to hide in the corridors of the stadium to ride out the hurricane. Can you imagine if there were 1000 people in those cots when the roof tore apart? Yikes!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/m...Tampa-Bay-Rays-deadly-storm-hits-Florida.html

 

[Astronuc]

Milton had other plans for the roof of the stadium, and it was torn off by the hurricane overnight.

I heard that the stadium roof was designed for 115 mph winds, whereas Milton's winds were 120-125 mph, but I don't know if those high wind speeds were reported in Tampa, or closer to Sarasota.

I worked on a metal building back in the 1980s, where the building and roof were designed for 120 mph winds, since it was expected that such winds were possible. The building was located in Baytown, TX, on the Gulf Coast.

 

[berkeman]

I heard that the stadium roof was designed for 115 mph winds, whereas Milton's winds were 120-125 mph, but I don't know if those high wind speeds were reported in Tampa, or closer to Sarasota.

The news report that I watched this morning about it (I think on CNN, not the article I linked above) said the highest recorded wind speed at the stadium was 101mph, so below the rated design limit. But it still blew off, so maybe their calculations for the roof's withstand level did not take something into account (like resonances or something).

 

[davenn]

TL;DR Summary: how to track the cat of a hurricane

Does anyone know of a site that, say, shows the position of the hurricane, as it moves and then it lights up the category as it moves?

For example, I noted it went down to 4 when sheared by the Yucatan peninsula.
Then back up to 5.
And after a few hours, the inner eye is less defined, and now it is 4 again.

I just want to see the category overlap iwth the position and how much time between changes.

Reading through the thread, I see no-one answered you specific Q

The site I used for weather worldwide is
https://zoom.earth/maps/satellite/

Currently set to Australia, where I am. You can move almost anywhere in the world ( polar regions excluded). Move it to your home country area and then bookmark so it always starts there.
You can zoom in on any region/storm of interest.
You can see all the data for that storm .. track, predicted track, wind speeds, CAT # etc etc.
It does 10 minute updates using the date/time selector at the bottom of the screen, which can also use a play mode to watch the movement of the storm
Move your mouse along the track to see the CAT#, wind speeds etc at that location.
Clicking on one of those points will bring up that graphic at the right giving more info

here's an example from Hurricane Milton that I downloaded
there's so many more features/available info that are also available
A totally excellent site

 

[nsaspook]

The news report that I watched this morning about it (I think on CNN, not the article I linked above) said the highest recorded wind speed at the stadium was 101mph, so below the rated design limit. But it still blew off, so maybe their calculations for the roof's withstand level did not take something into account (like resonances or something).

 

[nsaspook]

 

[Astronuc]

Now Oscar
https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/floater.php?stormid=AL162024

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/234243.shtml?cone#contents


Edit/update: (Miami Herald) From messy wave to hurricane overnight. Why computer models missed on Oscar forecast
https://news.yahoo.com/news/messy-wave-hurricane-overnight-why-204322878.html

On Friday night, a messy tropical wave to the east of Puerto Rico had just a 10% chance of strengthening over the weekend. By lunchtime on Saturday, it was a Category 1 hurricane bearing down on the Bahamas.

What happened?

Experts said the tiny storm ducked the attention of most major storm models, but humans watching the data pour in — and pilots and researchers gathering it themselves — were able to sound the alarm before Hurricane Oscar made landfall.


Philippe Papin was the forecaster on duty for the National Hurricane Center Saturday morning. He first spotted a problem while closely inspecting the passive microwave imagery, a satellite that offers scientists a view of what’s happening underneath the clouds. He spotted a low-level swirl, a tell-tale sign of a tropical storm.

“It became pretty clear that a small circulation was developing,” he told the Miami Herald. “We had to shift gear in a short period of time.”

By 11 a.m., the hurricane center issued its first forecast for Tropical Storm Oscar, complete with a cone pointed right at the Bahamas and Cuba. The Bahamas issued a tropical storm warning.

At the same time, a quickly pulled-together crew of Hurricane Hunters took to the skies from the island of St. Croix.

Within an hour and a half, they found a very different system than they saw a few days earlier, north of Puerto Rico. And it was easy to miss. The plane didn’t register tropical-storm-force winds until they were 10 nautical miles from the center, Papin said.

By 2 p.m., Tropical Storm Oscar was Hurricane Oscar, one of the smaller hurricanes on record in the Caribbean. That gave those islands less than a day to prepare for an imminent hurricane.

“The typical time for issuing a watch is 48 hours of lead time. This was more like 12 to 24 hours. Obviously that is sub-optimal,” Papin said.

Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas Sunday morning and on the eastern coast of Cuba on Sunday evening.

What the models missed

The system that would eventually become Oscar rolled off the coast of Africa more than a week earlier. Initially, computer models picked up the system and gave it a decent chance of forming a tropical depression — or something stronger.

But a surge of very dry air sucked the life out of it, or so the computer models thought. Hurricane hunter reconnaissance later in the week also found nothing but a tropical wave. On Friday, no major hurricane models showed the chance of a tropical storm forming anywhere in the Caribbean or Atlantic in the next seven days.
. . .

Small storms are difficult to predict.