“How dare you criticize billionaires? They make our jobs! Without them we wouldn’t have anything!” And later… ”Trump will show all those bad billionaires who’s boss! He’s gonna drain the swamp!” Yeah, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Observations on land of the sustained winds that hurricanes are classified as having—this happens very rarely. At best you usually will only see gusts matching the sustained speed that the NHC gives, and often not even that. The idea is that if a hurricane makes landfall as a 140 mph storm, that 140 mph is probably only in a tiny part of the eyewall, and likely only on the coast itself, right as the storm goes inland friction will slow those winds down. Add that to the paucity of recording stations where Helene made landfall, and it starts to make more sense.

The GFS just doesn't seem to be a priority for NCEP. There's no way it would ever pencil out in the private sector without a heavy infusion of government cash. The ECMWF's success is from their management and priorities, not their funding source...although it does help that they can sell their data to raise more cash.

I live 100 miles east of the eastern edge of where the eye of the storm hit last night. We had hardly any rainfall, with sustained winds topping mid 30’s with some gusts into the 60’s. All night I was checking weather stations all over the panhandle of florida down the gulf coast, and not once did I see a sustained windspeed over 66mph. I also had WINDY up and was dragging the curser all over and couldn’t find anything over 60mph. But it made landfall a cat 4 with 140mph winds?

Another beautiful afternoon.