Wilma smashes ashore near Marco Island

[phantom power]

Sure have been a lot of "rules" broken this year.

Wilma smashed ashore near Marco, Florida at 6:30 am EDT this morning as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph. The Hurricane Season of 2005 continues to rewrite the rules, as Wilma maintained an impressive intensification phase right up until landfall in the face of very significant wind shear--up to 30 knots. Current Miami radar shows that the southwest side of Wilma is being strongly affected by this wind shear--the echoes are much less intense on that side.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=208&tstamp=200510

[NNadir]

1. Scary ain't it. There is still a more than a month of "hurricane season"

assuming of course that hurricane season itself follows the rules and ends when it's supposed to do so. That's not a sure bet either.

[phantom power]

2. We had a tropical storm last year in December.

My bet is that storm season now extends thru December. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I hear that Wilma has restrengthened to cat-3 after passing over Florida. They keep telling us it's going to run out of steam, and yet it refuses to comply. I sort of hope that somewhere there are some meteorologists revising their prediction models.

I bet we get to Gamma this season. Smashing the old record by three storms.

[NNadir]

3. Ouch.

I sure hope it doesn't show up here.

[phantom power]

4. Wilma strengthens, heads out to sea

Wilma continues to confound forecasters, and has intensified once more into a Category 3 hurricane with 125 mph winds, despite wind shear levels that would normally barely support a hurricane. In fact, Wilma is close to Category 4 status-- The 5 pm hurricane hunter flight found winds at 10,000 feet of 157 mph, which normally translates to a surface wind of 140 mph--Category 4 winds. Wilma is over the Gulf Stream, which has warm water temperatures of 28 C capable of supporting a major hurricane. Wilma is racing northeast at 40 mph away from Florida, but is still bringing tropical storm force wind gusts to both the east and west coasts of Florida. A wind gust of 39 mph was measured at Naples at 4 pm EDT today.

(...)

Downtown Clewiston, next to Lake Okeechobee, suffered extensive damage. The airport and the runway at Key West's Naval Air Station are under water and up to 35% of the land area of Key West suffered inundation from Wilma's storm surge. The damage to the Keys and the rest of Florida is still unclear, but undoubtedly is tens of billions of dollars. It is also too early to gauge Wilma's impact on Mexico. Between 30-40% of the population in Cancun has suffered some damage to their housing. Reports are not in yet from the hardest hit areas, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen, which is a bad sign. Wilma caused heavy damage in Havana, where huge waves pushed flood waters up to four blocks inland, and flooded the city up to three feet deep. Damage to Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras, and Belize was also substantial. I'll have more detailed damage statistics when they become available. Including the damage done to Mexico, Wilma will probably be the second most costly hurricane of all time, next to Katrina.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=210&tstamp=200510

[Boomer]

5. What's Jeff Masters thinking?

I follow his blog closely because he's usually so good, but lately he seems to have a hard time wrapping his mind around the intensity of this hurricane season. He consistently underestimated Hurricane Wilma in his predictions, which is understandable given its atypical behavior, but that miscalculation makes his latest comments all the more startling:

>> I'll be back Tuesday morning to discuss the current Nor'easter and Wilma, plus the outlook for Sunday's Nor'easter. Hurricane season is close to ending; it's time to start thinking about winter storms. <<

Didn't he learn anything from Wilma? We still have a full month to go in this intense, unpredictable season. If anything, I'd be more concerned that the season will extend beyond normal, with more hurricanes still to come.

[NNadir]

6. In his defense, he works with models that are obsolete.

Most people would have trouble with their fields if all of the assumptions under which they worked were suddenly invalidated.

The World Meteorological Organization warned in 2003 that the climate was being dangerously destabilized. It may prove difficult to insert a new model, since the conditions are dyanamic. The atmosphere is rapidly changing; from our perspective it may be collapsing entirely.

I don't think that anyone actually knows any more what's going on.

[phantom power]

7. There will be a need for something closer to first-principle models.

True first principle models are unachievable (that would require modeling individual molecules for the entire planet), but high-res grid models ought to be possible with modern computing. Combined with the latest insights into weather systems.

[NNadir]

9. My guess is that such models will be far more limited.

There are so many variables now, including the output of some gases under non-linear conditions. There's this business of the tundra, methane hydrates, so on and so forth.

I think the local universe is suddenly becoming far less deterministic than it ever was, to the extent that it ever was deterministic.

Frankly, I'm rather frightened by this business and I've never considered myself a person who scares easily.

[Boomer]

10. That's exactly my point

>> I don't think that anyone actually knows any more what's going on.<<

It's one thing to admit you can't make accurate predictions because the models can no longer cope with the volatility of climate change, it's another to carry on as if business as usual.

The Inuit have admitted they can no longer predict winter weather. In fact many native hunters have died due to their inability to read ice conditions anymore. So Masters and others need to adjust their thinking as well.

[phantom power]

8. Strange things are happening. Even accounting for warm oceans.

Wilma intensified from tropical storm to Cat-5 in 12 hours. After the Yucatan, it proceeded to intensify in the presence of 30mph shear winds that should have really clobbered it. Then it did the same thing again today, after leaving florida.

There are effects of this climate shift that simply aren't predictable, even if you accept what's happening. Events are overtaking us.