Hurricane Melissa

[tornado examiner]

Near Treasure Beach, Jamaica

Jeez Luis I had to scan that for a good 45 seconds too verify if it's real or not. I think it's real.

 

[eep]

Late reply but I had to respond. This is a misconception I held for a long time until I dug deeper. Once you get to the very top of the Saffir-Simpson scale, you actually do start to see damage comparable to a violent tornado, albeit usually in isolated spots.

Andrew - Damage in the Naranja area was comparable to low end F4, including flattened one story condominium buildings.

Michael - Borderline violent damage including debarked trees and leveled buildings in the eastern fringes of the Panama City metro and at Tyndall AFB.

Irma - Debarked trees, severe damage to concrete buildings, and leveled homes were documented in the most violent parts of the eyewall in the Caribbean.

Dorian - Most violent hurricane eyeball damage I have ever seen. Anchor bolted homes in the Bahamas were leveled or slabbed far inland away from the storm surge. Entire forests were shredded and partially debarked. Large heavy objects like shipping containers were thrown.

I don’t have the patience to go back and dig all this up, but there are some photos posted by myself and others somewhere on a tropical events thread showing some of these instances of damage. In any case, I imagine we’ll see some damage from Melissa comparable to what I just described.

Mesovortices are probably the culprit, I think Fujita found they behaved very akin to actual tornadoes.

 

[lake.effect]

Jeez Luis I had to scan that for a good 45 seconds too verify if it's real or not. I think it's real.

Alright…it’s an actually fake. I made it in like 30 seconds as an experiment to see how easy it would be fabricate these images and needless to say, it was frighteningly easy. RIP reality

 

[akt1985]

Down the line, Melissa is forecast to accelerate in forward speed once it gets past the Bahamas.

 

[tornado examiner]

Alright…it’s an actually fake. I made it in like 30 seconds as an experiment to see how easy it would be fabricate these images and needless to say, it was frighteningly easy. RIP reality

……………………………….. B R U H

The internet is doomed if we don't place global bans on generative A.I. For Christ sake make it a felony world wide.

 

[Atlantic]

Alright…it’s an actually fake. I made it in like 30 seconds as an experiment to see how easy it would be fabricate these images and needless to say, it was frighteningly easy. RIP reality

I mean there is a thing down at the bottom right that gives it away so…

 

[ColdFront]

I mean there is a thing down at the bottom right that gives it away so…

yeah, I’d rather not turn this historic, informative thread into slop and dissertations on LLMs and generative AI but that’s just me.

 

[tornado examiner]

You know how just a few decades ago we entered the information era of humanity?

WELL NOW WE’RE IN THE MISINFORMATION ERA.

 

[tornado examiner]

yeah, I’d rather not turn this historic, informative thread into slop and dissertations on LLMs and generative AI but that’s just me.

Yeah. Let's not do that, but still…yikes.

 

[Atlantic]

yeah, I’d rather not turn this historic, informative thread into slop and dissertations on LLMs and generative AI but that’s just me.

I agree heavily on this. I don’t even trust or like AI in general.

Speaking of that, can we stop it with the AI discussion or take it somewhere else?

 

[Ozonelayer]

yeah, I’d rather not turn this historic, informative thread into slop and dissertations on LLMs and generative AI but that’s just me.

I couldn't agree more. Let's put away the AI talk and focus on the once in a generation hurricane that has occurred and is still ongoing.

 

[lake.effect]

……………………………….. B R U H

The internet is doomed if we don't place global bans on generative A.I. For Christ sake make it a felony world wide.

It blows my mind that a computer can take a two-sentence description of a complex real-world environment and be like “ok cool, got it” and generate a hyper-detailed image with all kinds of detail and nuance and near-perfect lighting, proportions and understanding of physics into a perfect image with all of those details in a way that looks the same as the real
world

Insane to think about, would not advise thinking about it for too long because this is nuts, just nuts. I think the models are already way smarter than most people believe

Anyway back to the weather

 

[buckeye05]

Mesovortices are probably the culprit, I think Fujita found they behaved very akin to actual tornadoes.

Yes. Not to derail the thread too much but a great study is Hurricane Harvey. It made landfall as a minimal Cat 4 (130 MPH), but it was a “weird” hurricane, because the wind damage was disproportionally violent due to Harvey’s eyewall being full of unusually large and powerful tornado-like mesovortices. There were leveled buildings and tossed cars documented in Rockport, and one small gift shop was swept clean down to its subfloor. At an apartment complex that took a direct hit from one of these mesovortices, large brick apartment buildings had their upper floors totally destroyed, and vehicles in the parking lot were moved and were impaled by pieces of lumber. Crazy stuff.

 

[akt1985]

A Hurricane Watch is now in effect for Bermuda. The NHC is also forecasting Melissa to be a major hurricane when it goes through the Bahamas.

 

[tornado examiner]

She’s grinning at us again before while gearing up for another historic landfall.

 

[Atlantic]

She’s grinning at us again before while gearing up for another historic landfall.

Another historic landfall? What do you mean by that?

 

[Kolle]

Here's an ongoing Jamaican press conference from their EMA agency.

Some highlights: 70% of the island is without power. The Kingston capital area has power. One of the hospitals near the landfall site has had storm surge damage, and another is without power. Those patients were safely relocated. Almost all the roads in all parishes are flooded or blocked with storm debris.

 

[tornado examiner]

Another historic landfall? What do you mean by that?

Potentially Strongest landfall in that area of Cuba since Inez back in 1960 something.

 

[akt1985]

WeathermanLeprechaun, it looks like you might get some of what’s left of Melissa in Ireland this weekend.

 

[Clancy]

I’ve been following this thread since Melissa formed but not posting, I’m just not that versed in tropical systems. While I’m absolutely a tornado guy, and it’s been said ad nauseam already, we are witnessing something historic.

what would be the closest comparison to this in a tornado event?

4/3/1974, 4/27/2011, this is literally the hurricane equivalent to a super outbreak.

Generally agree with that assessment. Of course, it's very difficult to compare the two directly, but most of us here, even people who have tracked hurricanes for many years, would probably concur that this was an exceptional storm. Impossible to tell exactly where she sits, but Melissa will be very near the top of a lot of Atlantic records. This IR loop is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I've ever seen. While Kingston was likely spared from a more serious hit, I'm worried by the relative dearth of early damage reports/photos from Jamaica's SW. Reminds me a bit of Bahamas post-Dorian. I'm very concerned by what kind of damage was left down that way - even though it's not the pop. density of Kingston and environs, it still has multiple 10,000+ towns.