Did Hurricane Wilma have 209 mph sustained winds?
At last week's 30th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Eric Uhlhorn of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division presented a poster that looked at the relationship between surface winds measured by the SFMR instrument and flight-level winds in two Category 5 storms. Hurricane Hunter flights done into Category 5 Supertyphoon Megi (17 October 2010) and Category 5 Hurricane Felix (03 September 2007) found that the surface winds measured by SFMR were greater than those measured at flight level (10,000 feet.) Usually, surface winds in a hurricane are 10 - 15% less than at 10,000 feet, but he showed that in super-intense Category 5 storms with small eyes, the dynamics of these situations may generate surface winds that are as strong or stronger than those found at 10,000 feet. He extrapolated this statistical relationship (using the inertial stability measured at flight level) to Hurricane Wilma of 2005, which was the strongest hurricane on record (882 mb), but was not observed by the SFMR. He estimated that the maximum wind averaged around the eyewall in Wilma at peak intensity could have been 209 mph, plus or minus 20 mph--so conceivably as high as 229 mph, with gusts to 270 mph. Yowza. That's well in excess of the 200 mph minimum wind speed a top end EF-5 tornado has. The Joplin, Missouri EF-5 tornado of May 22, 2011 had winds estimated at 225 - 250 mph. That tornado ripped pavement from the ground, leveled buildings to the concrete slabs they were built on, and killed 161 people. It's not a pretty thought to consider what Wilma would have done to Cancun, Key West, or Fort Myers had the hurricane hit with sustained winds of what the Joplin tornado had.
Figure 1. Hurricane Wilma's pinhole eye as seen at 8:22 a.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005, by the crew aboard NASA's international space station as the complex flew 222 miles above the storm. At the time, Wilma was the strongest Atlantic hurricane in history, with a central pressure of 882 mb and sustained surface winds estimated at 185 mph. The storm was located in the Caribbean Sea, 340 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico. Image source: NASA's Space Photo Gallery.
Figure 2. Damage in Joplin, Missouri after the EF-5 tornado of May 22, 2011. Image credit: wunderphotographer thebige.
Official all-time strongest winds in an Atlantic hurricane: 190 mph
The official record for strongest winds in an Atlantic hurricane is 190 mph, for Hurricane Allen of 1980 as it was entering the Gulf of Mexico, and for Hurricane Camille of 1969, as it was making landfall in Pass Christian, Mississippi. In Dr. Bob Sheets' and Jack Williams' book, Hurricane Watch, they recount the Hurricane Hunters flight into Camile as the hurricane reached peak intensity: On Sunday afternoon, August 17, and Air Force C-130 piloted by Marvin Little penetrated Camille's eye and measured a pressure of 26.62 inches of mercury. "Just as we were nearing the eyewall cloud we suddenly broke into a clear area and could see the sea surface below," the copilot, Robert Lee Clark, wrote in 1982. "What a sight! Although everyone on the crew was experienced except me, no one had seen the wind whip the sea like that before...Instead of the green and white splotches normally found in a storm, the sea surface was in deep furrows running along the wind direction....The velocity was beyond the descriptions used in our training and far beyond anything we had ever seen." So, the 190 mph winds of Camille were an estimate that was off the scale from anything that had ever been observed in the past. The books that the Hurricane Hunters carried, filled with photos of the sea state at various wind speeds, only goes up to 150 mph (Figure 2). I still used this book to estimate surface winds when I flew with the Hurricane Hunters in the late 1980s, and the books are still carried on the planes today. In the two Category 5 hurricanes I flew into, Hugo and Gilbert, I never observed the furrowing effect referred to above. Gilbert had surface winds estimated at 175 mph based on what we measured at flight level, so I believe the 190 mph wind estimate in Camille may be reasonable.
Figure 3. Appearance of the sea surface in winds of 130 knots (150 mph). Image credit: Wind Estimations from Aerial Observations of Sea Conditions (1954), by Charlie Neumann.
Figure 4. Radar image of Hurricane Camille taken at 22:15 UTC August 17, 1969, a few hours before landfall in Mississippi. At the time, Camille had the highest sustained winds of any Atlantic hurricane in history--190 mph.
The infamous hurricane hunter flight into Wilma during its rapid intensification
While I was at last week's conference, I had a conversation with Rich Henning, a flight meteorologist for NOAA's Hurricane Hunters, who served for many years as a Air Reconnaissance Weather Officer (ARWO) for the Air Force Hurricane Hunters. Rich told me the story of the Air Force Hurricane Hunter mission into Hurricane Wilma in the early morning hours of October 19, 2005, as Wilma entered its explosive deepening phase. The previous airplane, which had departed Category 1 Wilma six hours previously, flew through Wilma at an altitude of 5,000 feet. They measured a central pressure of 954 mb when they departed the eye at 23:10 UTC. The crew of the new plane assumed that the hurricane, though intensifying, was probably not a major hurricane, and decided that they would also go in at 5,000 feet. Winds outside the eyewall were less than hurricane force, so this seemed like a reasonable assumption. Once the airplane hit the eyewall, they realized their mistake. Flight level winds quickly rose to 186 mph, far in excess of Category 5 strength, and severe turbulence rocked the aircraft. The aircraft was keeping a constant pressure altitude to maintain their height above the ocean during the penetration, but the area of low pressure at Wilma's center was so intense that the airplane descended at over 1,000 feet per minute during the penetration in order to maintain a constant pressure altitude. By they time they punched into the incredibly tiny 4-mile wide eye, which had a central pressure of just 901 mb at 04:32 UTC, the plane was at a dangerously low altitude of 1,500 feet--not a good idea in a Category 5 hurricane. The pilot ordered an immediate climb, and the plane exited the other side of Wilma's eyewall at an altitude of 10,000 feet. They maintained this altitude for the remainder of the flight. During their next pass through the eye at 06:11 UTC, the diameter of the eye had shrunk to an incredibly tiny two miles--the smallest hurricane eye ever measured. During their third and final pass through the eye at 0801 UTC, a dropsonde found a central pressure of 882 mb--the lowest pressure ever observed in an Atlantic hurricane. In the span of just 24 hours, Wilma had intensified from a 70 mph tropical storm to a 175 mph category 5 hurricane--an unprecedented event for an Atlantic hurricane. Since the pressure was still falling, it is likely that Wilma became even stronger after the mission departed.
I'll have a new post by Tuesday at the latest.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 — Blog Index
Just thought I would check in and see what's going own....
Its always good to see the regulars in here as well as some new people....
Taco :o)
Are you still digging for those pictures, Geoff?
I really wish that Plymouth State would put the Keys in their map.
There's going to be a threat for Severe Weather everyday this week, and Tuesday looks like it will be the peak day across portions of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota. In this area, large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are all possible.
Taco :o)
Severe Weather and Flash Flood Warnings
Note: This page will reload every 2 minutes. Warnings are listed with the most recent first.
Click on the station ID to bring up list of recent severe weather statements.
120
WUUS54 KLUB 300027
SVRLUB
TXC219-279-300130-
/O.NEW.KLUB.SV.W.0075.120430T0027Z-120430T0130Z/
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LUBBOCK TX
727 PM CDT SUN APR 29 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LUBBOCK HAS ISSUED A
* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...
NORTHERN HOCKLEY COUNTY IN NORTHWEST TEXAS.
SOUTHERN LAMB COUNTY IN NORTHWEST TEXAS.
* UNTIL 830 PM CDT
* AT 723 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
A CLUSTER OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LARGE
DAMAGING HAIL UP TO GOLF BALL SIZE. THIS STORM WAS LOCATED 6
MILES SOUTHWEST OF LITTLEFIELD...AND MOVING NORTHEAST AT 20 MPH.
* SOME LOCATIONS NEAR THE PATH OF THIS STORM INCLUDE SUDAN...
AMHERST...ANTON...SPADE...LITTLEFIELD AND OLTON.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
LARGE HAIL...DAMAGING WINDS...AND VERY HEAVY RAINS ARE EXPECTED WITH
THIS STORM. TAKE COVER IN A SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER.
TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...PLEASE CALL THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
AT 8067451290.
LAT...LON 3409 10255 3422 10209 3370 10209 3363 10254
TIME...MOT...LOC 0027Z 229DEG 18KT 3388 10240
Most likely yes and much more robust, imo. Increasing easterly flow overnight will aid in the redevelopment of shwrs/strms.
Heard that 6 inches has Already fallen in some places in West broward and Boca Raton... Maybe that 8 inches possible forcast wasnt crazy after all.
I'm assuming 2-3 inches will fall tommorow over the area.
Flooding is everywhere on the streets, and will go down as one of the nastiest (besides Hurricane Irene, August 25th) days I've ever seen it here.
Hopefully tomorrow it will clear up .. hopefully.
0147
16 SW ASPERMONT
STONEWALL TX 3298 10042
BRIEF TORNADO REPORTED
OBSERVED TO LAST ABOUT 2 MINUTES. (LUB)
You'd be surprised how many times pictures just like this one surface that turn out not to be tornadoes.
Looks like only one tornado report from yesterday.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/120428_rpts .html
Although not impossible, typically if a tornado were to get that large, it would not be so brief.
I think we need a little more than that...
The inverted trough now splits the state so the entire east coast is now on the convergent side for the evening.
Hmmmm
Oh well, then ...
Skyepony (the actual pony) was feeling the surface trough south of here, wind would kick up a little & he'd want to go..pranced around more than usual. Fun ride.
The ants are moving to high ground.
There is an Upper level Low over SFL is venting the trough, causing diffluence, especially on the east side, over the Atlantic & Bahamas. So can't rule out a more rain for East Central FL. Little going on now north of Orlando, incoming shower headed for the Cape.
This should continue on about another day. More heavy rain for SFL & Bahamas is possible. Models then call for the different features to move away from each other, weakening it. There is so much shear around. The bulk of the moisture may make it to LA before being slowly pushed back east over much of the Southeast over the next week.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH
334 PM EDT SUN APR 29 2012
LEZ061-142>149-162>169-OHZ003-006>014-017>023-027 >033-036>038-047-
089-PAZ001>003-301945-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM RIPLEY TO BUFFALO NY-
MAUMEE BAY TO RENO BEACH OH-RENO BEACH TO THE ISLANDS OH-
THE ISLANDS TO VERMILION OH-VERMILION TO AVON POINT OH-
AVON POINT TO WILLOWICK OH-WILLOWICK TO GENEVA-ON-THE LAKE OH-GENEVA-
ON-THE-LAKE TO CONNEAUT OH-CONNEAUT OH TO RIPLEY NY-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM MAUMEE BAY TO RENO BEACH-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM RENO BEACH TO THE ISLANDS-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM THE ISLANDS TO VERMILION-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM VERMILION TO AVON POINT-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM AVON POINT TO WILLOWICK-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM WILLOWICK TO GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE TO CONNEAUT-
LAKE ERIE OPEN WATERS FROM CONNEAUT OH TO RIPLEY NY-LUCAS-WOOD-
OTTAWA-SANDUSKY-ERIE OH-LORAIN-CUYAHOGA-LAKE-GEAUGA-ASHTABULA INLAND-
HANCOCK-SENECA-HURON-MEDINA-SUMMIT-PORTAGE-TRUMBU LL-WYANDOT-CRAWFORD-
RICHLAND-ASHLAND-WAYNE-STARK-MAHONING-MARION-MORR OW-HOLMES-KNOX-
ASHTABULA LAKESHORE-NORTHERN ERIE-SOUTHERN ERIE-CRAWFORD PA-
334 PM EDT SUN APR 29 2012
THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR LAKE ERIE...NORTH CENTRAL
OHIO...NORTHEAST OHIO...NORTHWEST OHIO AND NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA.
.DAY ONE...THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT.
HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS NOT EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.
.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY.
SEVERAL ROUNDS OF THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED THIS WEEK... WITH THE
FIRST CHANCE ON MONDAY AND CONTINUING EACH DAY THROUGH FRIDAY.
IT WILL LIKELY BE UNSTABLE ENOUGH FOR STRONG TO SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS TO OCCUR ON ONE OR MORE OF THE DAYS THIS WEEK.
PLEASE REFER TO THE LATEST FORECAST...AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...
OR HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR THE LATEST FORECAST INFORMATION.
.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...
SPOTTER ACTIVATION IS NOT EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.
$$
Gonna be a nerve racking week. :)
I know a guy that works at the Norman, OK National Weather Service. He believed it and stated it was a large tornado himself, so...
And they are talking about the same tornado report? The one on the SPC page?
Certainly not impossible for a brief tornado to be rather large, although it is a little atypical and should generate skepticism. Also, when someone tells me that a photo is "from a chaser that was there," that doesn't say a lot to me. I've seen many very bad chaser pictures/reports by people who have little training, but call themselves a "chaser" because they want to be like other people they admire or see in the popular media.
We also get many many posts of "the NWS really needs a warning now" - probably more than I can count - although many of those times the information used to come to that conclusion is borderline at best. This makes sense, as I strongly doubt that in all those cases the NWS is sitting down on the job just letting an obvious tornadic circulation go right by them. It can happen, but as for yesterday's case, it wasn't like the radar was completely covered in storms... it was the storm of the evening, was probably being watched by almost everyone on shift at WFO Lubbock, and probably wasn't warned on for a logical reason.
This goes to show that a system doesn't have to be an Invest or named system to produce significant impact...thanks for sharing...
Yes, I am talking about the only tornado report in Texas yesterday. If you want specifics, the storm chaser's name is Niccolo Ubalducci...look him up on facebook. :P
That's sad news Skye
The roads seem to be draining pretty fast so far. Most of the ones I drove on just now are considerably less flooded than when I was out around 3 p.m. today. You can really see which areas have poor drainage.
Is it still raining by you, Thrawst? It's just spitting here now, and the wind has fallen off considerably.
It's not that important; I dont need to vet this person or look him up or ask him questions or anything like that... it wouldn't be my place anyway, that's WFO Lubbock's area. It doesn't look like the tornado hit anything because I cant seem to find any talk about a survey being conducted.
Some interesting motions and interactions starting to go on. We had one split with a left mover and a right mover (which was moving directly toward greater Lubbock). Now just as it seems like there would be a supercellular threat to the city, another cell formed moving NE and is about to head right into it.
And the anticyclonic supercell on the northern end, too.
Yeah, it looks like the tornado threat for Lubbock is increasing now that the storms have merged.
Nothing yet on the SRV table.
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LUBBOCK TX
838 PM CDT SUN APR 29 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LUBBOCK HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SOUTHERN LUBBOCK COUNTY IN NORTHWEST TEXAS.
* UNTIL 915 PM CDT
* AT 836 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THE MOST
DANGEROUS PART OF THIS STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR WOLFFORTH...OR ABOUT
20 MILES SOUTHEAST OF LEVELLAND...MOVING EAST AT 25 MPH.
* SOME LOCATIONS NEAR THE PATH OF THIS STORM INCLUDE LUBBOCK SOUTH
PLAINS MALL...WOLFFORTH...SLIDE AND WOODROW.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A TORNADO MAY FORM AT ANY TIME...TAKE COVER NOW! ABANDON MOBILE HOMES
AND VEHICLES FOR MORE SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. AVOID WINDOWS.
TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...PLEASE CALL THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
AT 8067451290.
A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1100 PM CDT
SUNDAY EVENING FOR THE PANHANDLE AND NORTHWEST TEXAS.
&&
So what are we going to call this thing in the 2012 post-season analysis? 'That thing from April 30'?
Yeah... it's affected my entire family mentally xD cause we are outside usually 12-14 hours per day haha.
Well... it's been on and off here. Wouldn't be surprised to see it reach the half foot mark by midnight. although... it seems like the end MAYYYY be near! (THANK YOU)
Those are the strongest clouds I've seen in our area all day.
Is the Low going to pass south of Florida or through Florida.
That looks potentially devastating.
Viewing: 1251 - 1301
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 — Blog Index