I have been keeping track of the details of the storm via the
http://reddit.com/r/TropicalWeather they have a daily thread that monitors all scientific updates from this storm. If you go to that thread, set the sorting to new (to get newest messages first) and you will get almost realtime updated data and analysis by the users. There was some really interesting data last night. One of the most important being that this storm basically cancelled its Eye Wall Regeneration Cycle. Typically, the storms will regenerate their eye wall every so often and during this time, the storm weakens or maintains strength. Last night, all signs were there pointing to a new eye wall being established soon. The new eye wall was showing structure inside the storm, the old one was showing signs of weakening, etc. Pretty much textbook EWRC, until it just stopped. Nobody knows why, nobody was even sure if this was known to have happened before. Of course, with the cancelled EWRC, the storm kept strengthening overnight, dropping down to 913 mbar. This was very unexpected, today things are a bit better as the mid-level wind sheer that Irma ignored yesterday is making its presence felt today. The eye is less organized and the pressure has risen to 922 mbar (which is still a remarkably strong storm, but at least it isn't strengthening). This is still a catastrophically strong storm, just not quite as catastrophic as it was at 2AM EDT last night.
Watching the models evolve has been very interesting too. GFS has overall been a bit more accurate initially, but Euro is rapidly falling in-line with GFS. Both GFS and Euro have been very squirrely, lots of wobbles in their predictions and a good amount of variation in the ensembles indicating a LOT of uncertainty (more on that later).
As for what the models are predicting on where it will go:
Now for a bit of good news, bad news, worse news, even worse news. There have been some really scary model runs that occurred last night, with some models indicating possibly sub-880mbar pressures after strengthening (a few models even had it at sub 870-mBar). This would make it one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, storms to ever exist in the Atlantic. The good news: These seem to have let up some due to the aforementioned weakening. The bad news: those models predicted a heavy strengthening followed by a, more or less, rapid collapse. They anticipated a weak grazing of Florida, followed by a weakening and eventual landfall at either strong CAT 3 or CAT 4. The new models don't have the storm getting that strong but anticipate it making a Cat 5 landing in the Miami-Dade area. Worse news: The new models indicate an 895 mBar pressure when it hits the Miami head-on. This would put it in the Top 5 Atlantic storm of ALL TIME (landfall or not) and within spitting distance of the Top 3 ("Labor Day" Storm was recorded at 892 mbar). Additionally, this would put it as either number 1 or number 2 of strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall ever (depending on if it drops below the 892mBar recorded for the Labor Day storm when it landed)! Even worse news: It is expected to retain its Cat V status until it rehits land somewhere between SC and VA.
That being said, this storm is so large and powerful, as I mentioned, the models are having a hard time getting a handle on it with a lot of uncertainty. We just don't have enough data on storms of this scale to make accurate models and forecasts. We can extrapolate from weaker storms but extrapolation only gets you so far. You can extrapolate how well a drag racer can perform but if your data is mostly Kia Rio's and Honda Accords, your estimate isn't going to be very good. That's kinda where they are with this storm. As such, a lot of the predictions will change dramatically over the next 48hours, as it has in the past 48-72h.
Because of this rapid change, even if the models don't show it hitting your area, you are still at risk and should take basic precautions.
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