The terminology is chaos theory. The models use non-linear PDEs (the Navier-Stokes equations on a rotating sphere plus considerations for radiative transfer, turbulence, and liquid phase change). It is an initial value problem and slight differences in the initial state will result in differences in the simulation. Since you can’t know the initial state perfectly, there is a limit to predictability. Ensembles take advantage of this by making multiple runs with slightly altered initial states to define the envelope of possibilities. That is the short version.

You're 81 for goodness sake. Even if climate change were miraculously true, you won't have anything to worry about. Unless you're The Highlander. Then all bets are off, of course. There can be only one!

I want to know where Jim Cantore is. If I see him around here, it’s not good news.

Local NWS wind forecast update provided by Mike Lima on FB
...

At 11:00 am the NHC updated its wind forecast for The Villages. The estimate for winds in the 39-57 mph range is 80% and in the 58-73 mph range is 7%. They removed any probability of hurricane force winds from the forecast. The NWS maximum winds for Wildwood forecast was slightly modified to 30 mph with gusts to 40.

The links are: [Hurricane Milton Wind Speed Probabilities (noaa.gov)](Hurricane Milton Wind Speed Probabilities)

[National Weather Service](National Weather Service)

National Weather Service

I hope OBB sees this.

Wildwood is where my village of the map is so I specifically check that map marker. The Villages map marker is a few miles above us. Orlando is 61 miles southeast of us. My geography teacher would be proud. :duck:

Tampa

I'm doing a load of laundry right now. Got 4 days worth of clothes, water, roll of TP, ziplock baggies, baby wipes, a first aid kit, charged old cell phone I can use to power my mini-fan, charged tablet, current phone, and laptop, and pillows sitting on top of the inserts for our dining room table on the floor of the master bedroom walk-in closet. Litter box is right outside the closet door in the sink area of the bathroom.

Why? Not because of hurricanes - I've lived through many hurricanes and Nor'easters, living in New England for most of my life. No - but because of tornadoes.

I'm confident our house will be relatively unscathed by the gusts of the hurricane. But a tornado whipping through the neighborhood could easily rip the roof off our house and send someone's golf cart through our lanai into the living room.

So that's what I'm prepping for. It'll take me all of 10 minutes to UNpack all this stuff if we don't get a tornado. It took me an hour to gather it all and make the closet floor "sleepable" for me, hubby, and cat.


---edited to add: at the moment, we have all our windows open, the lanai sliders open, and there's a glorious breeze blowing throughout the house. It's raining, but we have those slatted shutter awnings that keep the rain from blowing into the house (mostly). We'll shut everything down soon but this is the first time in three months it's been cool enough to open a window. I want to take advantage of it while I can.

Vector calculus
 

Just for some masochistic fun, I scrolled through the Wikipedia page on Navier-Stokes. That there are humans walking among us that "get" that stuff boggles my mind. How do you find anybody to talk to?? :-)