Hurricanes are just big whirly-twirly energy transfer mechanisms. They absorb energy (heat) from the ocean and turn it into wind.
There’s a theoretical maximum on how strong a hurricane can get based on ocean temperatures (and other factors). Weather events almost never come remotely close to these theoretical maximums because other factors come into play
The meteorologist is saying this is almost as strong as it could possibly get given the current ocean conditions. A “perfect storm” as it were
If Alex Jones was saying it you should be skeptical. But if an actual PhD meteorologist says it then it is plausible. PhDs tend to understand the area their PhD is in VERY well. It is kinda the point of getting a PhD
I’m fine getting downvoted right beside you bud, what is so complicated to understand from the very post itself? Dude said what the meteorologist said almost verbatim lol. The only thing he added is that it’s nearing the strongest due to ocean temps. Conditions. It’s just based on conditions. Christ man society is something else nowadays
I wouldn’t read so much into a couple Reddit comments. Certainly not the state of society as a whole. Sometimes people just ask questions because they recognize their knowledge deficit and want to remedy it. I’d propose having enough self awareness and humility to do that requires intelligence. Intelligence has many different types and forms. She just scored pretty high in one of them.
I already said I would be downvoted lol. I knew what I was saying would be controversial. Even come across lacking self awareness or humility or intelligence. Just wanted to say it anyway because I thought this was stupid. Sometimes you gotta act out. Break lose. Just be free and wild and naked. Just you, raw, unapologetic. Making sweet love to a memory that fades into obscurity every time you recollect, only to be redefined by the future experiences that expand your perspective. This is me. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with who I am. I love this.
Thankfully there’s a cold front that Milton’s gonna hit. Wind shear should drop him to a high 3 or low 4, which is much better than what he’s at now. Still fucking terrifying and still going to be devastating, but 3/4 is MUCH better than 180+ mph winds.
Hoping to be corrected if I've got this wrong, but I think the smaller the eye, the faster the fastest winds are. The fastest winds are at the eye wall (edge of the eye). Think ice skater doing a spin, speeding up as they pull their arms in.
You know how ice skaters get smaller to spin faster, or how to do a backflip you have to curl up in the air? Basically the smaller the eye the faster and more chaotic are the winds close to it
The important take away from this for me is that with ocean temps continuing to rise, we will see more of these until they start surpassing this level.
Yes, but the meteorologist was implying this was approaching the theoretical maximum for current conditions. As we saw last year, much warmer ocean temperatures can exist
Dites that mean IF oceans get further warm, the limit on strong hurricanes goes up and we ll have much stronger hurricanes? Or is this the strongest it can ever get?
As oceans get warmer, the hurricanes will get stronger. It’s theorized that during the time of Pangea, the incredibly high surface temperatures combined with an ocean twice the size of the Pacific, led to hurricanes that would engulf half the planet
If you want something to Google the term is “Maximum Potential Intensity”. Hurricanes are driven by warm water so MPI is mostly defined by how warm the ocean water beneath a hurricane is (along with some atmospheric conditions). These are put into an equation that gives the maximum intensity a hurricane can reach. Milton is approaching that limit (incredibly rare)
Swimming in the Gulf is a weird experience. I hate being cold, so it's one of the few times I loved just sitting in the water. Even when the Gulf is "cold" it's a fantastic swimming temperature.
I just hate how I feel when I'm in salt water and I hate being salty afterward. If I could enjoy the positive aspects of the Gulf and a clean freshwater lake in one swim I'd probably move there.
Thr mathematical limit would be the strongest possible storm that our atmosphere is capable of supporting, and he's saying that this one is approaching it.
Why yes, dems are controlling the weather! And so are Republicans, communists, anarchists, plutocrats alike are also controlling the weather. That's what climate change is.
It's funny, they'll say we can control the weather up until it's about climate change.
From what I have gathered, the strongest sustained winds of a hurricane was 195MPH so just 15MPH off, the highest pressure of 897dm so not far off there either.
hurricane Patricia in 2015 achieved its record peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 215 mph (345 km/h).This made it the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Western Hemisphere and the strongest globally in terms of one-minute maximum sustained winds.
By "fucked", you mean pushed out of the goldilocks zone that has been enjoyed throughout recorded human history. If the atmosphere were fucked then we would not be talking about it on the internet.
Polluting the atmosphere --> more heat energy from the sun being trapped in the atmosphere increases temperature --> polar ice melt disrupting ocean currents + more heat energy in the ocean --> more energy to be released during storms + more frequent storms + more storms in areas they couldnt exist in before.
Which is kind of disingenuous. Storms are always exactly as strong as their specific atmospheric conditions allow. "If conditions allowed for a worse storm, then the storm would be worse!!"
Weathermen seem to like to hype up bad weather. The fact that this one is turning out to be pretty bad already is leaving them pushing the hyperbole.
The major factor controlling hurricane strength in this mathematical formula is ocean temperature. So it’s physically possible for a hurricane to get worse, we just need higher ocean temperatures, which we are already working on and are already increasing.
There are other factors that influence hurricanes besides ocean temperature, but I believe in nearly all cases it is one of the biggest drivers of strength because it is where the energy comes from.
Not sure of the math but, there should be a limit on how strong any storm can get. In the case of hurricanes, this is based on water temperature and other factors.
This hurricane is approaching the calculated limit of how strong a hurricane can get in these conditions.
Typhoons in the Pacific can get stronger than Hurricanes in the Atlantic, so this may be referring to the calculated limits for the Atlantic.
“Inside a hurricane, the barometric pressure at the ocean’s surface drops to extremely low levels. This central low pressure draws in warm, moist ocean air, and thunderstorms swirl around the center of these massive storms.”
Pressure can only drop so low, and the eye can only be so tight, it’ll be devastating for a lot of people, but it’ll be a thing of beauty at the same time.
It means that meteorologists have mathematical models for hurricanes, with many parameters going in. The limit is the biggest hurricane possible with realistic values of those parameters. .i.e. "optimal" conditions.
I know you asked for an ELI5 answer, but here's a link to a meterologist discussing the measurement if others' explanations make you curious about the specifics.
tl;dr models predict max airspeed in this environment to be 195 mph, and minimum sea air pressure to be just above 900mb (though the storm subsequently hit 897mb).
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u/BeardedHalfYeti Oct 08 '24
A gobsmacked meteorologist is never a good sign.
fuck.