Philippe Papin

@pppapin.bsky.social

4787 Followers 557 Following

Sr. Hurricane Specialist at NHC 🌀 | Ph.D + M.S. via UAlbany & B.S. via UNCA | Enjoy all kinds of weather 🌤❄️⛈🌪| Thoughts are my own

Last sentence in the NPR article on "As the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ends, the future of forecasting is AI" URL: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/29/nx-s1-5604290/atlantic-hurricane-season-forecast-ai-google
Title & Abstract of the National Hurricane Center Verification Report Preview.
View of the San Luis Reservoir where low clouds are draining in from the Central Valley.
GOES-18 Geocolor Loop of Central California. From College of DuPage Satellite Viewer — https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=local-Cen_California-truecolor-48-1-50-1&checked=usstrd-ushw-usint-map&colorbar=undefined
Tomer Burg's RTMA centered over the Southeast. Plotted is dewpoint (shaded, deg F), 10 m wind (barbs), and MSLP (every 2 mb, thin black lines).
10 minimum temperatures for Feb 20th. Two dates set the record minimum (2/20/1972 & 2/20/2015).
11/11/25 Climate Report for KMIA (Miami International Airport).
Radar Relectivity from KLOT
Water Vapor Satellite Imagery (shaded) with 500 mb heights (red contours), 500 mb winds (barbs), and composite radar reflectivity overlaid (green shading).
Title and Abstract text from Fischer et al. 2020 in Monthly Weather Review.
Example of a Tomer Burg model guidance intensity graph where "NHC" is actually the prior interpolated NHC forecast (OFCI), instead of the actual official forecast for that time period (OFCL)
HURDAT2 database showing a landfall of 115 kt for Hurricane Gilbert in Jamaica
Visible Satellite Snapshot of Melissa at 21z 25 October
Radar Reflectivity Animation from Kingston, Jamaica of Hurricane Melissa.
Historical record of direct major hurricane landfalls in Jamaica. There are 5 cases, the most recent being 110 kt Gilbert in 1988.
Sea-Surface Temperature analysis over the Caribbean Sea. Hurricane Melissa is over 30-31C SSTs, which are about 1-2C above average for this time of the year.
12z 25 Oct Google DeepMind Short-Term Ensemble Forecast through 42h.
Verifying 6h forecast of precip and sea level pressure from the ECMWF
Precipitation & Sea Level Pressure forecast for the ECMWF valid on Wednesday at 18z. Note the linear convective features that are across the domain, related to unrealistic gravity wave intensity & propagation.
36h 350k PV forecast from the ECMWF
500 mb height percentiles of the ECMWF forecast in 42h. Illustrating an enhanced ridge over the E Atlantic.
GOES-19 visible satellite animation of Tropical Storm Jerry on October 7th.
12z ECWMF 66h Forecast
00z ECMWF model analysis depicting what appears to be large spurious gravity waves in convective features all across the tropical latitudes.
Great Circle Distance tool calculator available here -- https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gccalc.shtml
Velocity Potential anomalies at 200 mb where +CHI (proxy for downward large scale vertical motion) shows up as brown colors and -CHI (proxy for upward large-scale vertical motion) shows up as green colors.
ECMWF analysis of 200-mb Velocity Potential Anomalies globally. Note the +VP anomalies over the North Atlantic and -VP anomalies over the Central and Western Pacific.
GOES-19 GeoColor Full Disk View for September 27th, 2025.
Abstract of Fischer et al. 2020
Water Vapor Animation of the Western Pacific Basin over the past week. Annotations provided to explain different TC genesis events.
NWS Unified Surface Analysis valid at 12 UTC 12 Sep 2025 -- https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/USA_12Z.gif
An instagram post from accuweather they posted yesterday afternoon about the system that was not yet a tropical cyclone, where they provided a track & intensity forecast for a system that was more than 3 days away from land interest. They indicated the system would intensify into a category 2 hurricane and were overly confident about impacts for the Lesser Antillies.
GOES 19 Truecolor Image of Hurricane Erin on 8/20/25
GFS forecast for significant wave heights associated with Hurricane Erin
Picture of Smoke in the Miami Metro area at 830am 8-20-25.
Surface wind / Pressure observations table in Oklahoma
GOES-19 WV snapshot with implied shear direction diagnosed by SHIPS Guidance.
Rapidly rising temperatures (red) in the eye of Hurricane Erin.
deep-dive on Podul showing why satellite imagery cold cloud tops are a reflection of mountain waves triggered by the circulation moving over the island.