A new world record wind gust: 253 mph in Australia's Tropical Cyclone Olivia
The 6,288-foot peak of New Hampshire's Mount Washington is a forbidding landscape of wind-swept barren rock, home to some of planet Earth's fiercest winds. As a 5-year old boy, I remember being blown over by a terrific gust of wind on the summit, and rolling out of control towards a dangerous drop-off before a fortuitously-placed rock saved me. Perusing the Guinness Book of World Records as a kid, three iconic world weather records always held a particular mystique and fascination for me: the incredible 136°F (57.8°C) at El Azizia, Libya in 1922, the -128.5°F (-89.2°C) at the "Pole of Cold" in Vostok, Antarctica in 1983, and the amazing 231 mph wind gust (103.3 m/s) recorded in 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Well, the legendary winds of Mount Washington have to take second place now, next to the tropical waters of northwest Australia. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that the new world wind speed record at the surface is a 253 mph (113.2 m/s) wind gust measured on Barrow Island, Australia. The gust occurred on April 10, 1996, during passage of the eyewall of Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Olivia.
Figure 1. Instruments coated with rime ice on the summit of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. Image credit: Mike Theiss.
Tropical Cyclone Olivia
Tropical Cyclone Olivia was a Category 4 storm on the U.S. Saffir-Simpson scale, and generated sustained winds of 145 mph (1-minute average) as it crossed over Barrow Island off the northwest coast of Australia on April 10, 1996. Olivia had a central pressure of 927 mb and an eye 45 miles in diameter at the time, and generated waves 21 meters (69 feet) high offshore. According to Black et al. (1999), the eyewall likely had a tornado-scale mesovortex embedded in it that caused the extreme wind gust of 253 mph. The gust was measured at the standard measuring height of 10 meters above ground, on ground at an elevation of 64 meters (210 feet). A similar mesovortex was encountered by a Hurricane Hunter aircraft in Hurricane Hugo of 1989, and a mesovortex was also believed to be responsible for the 239 mph wind gust measured at 1400 meters by a dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel in 2003. For reference, 200 mph is the threshold for the strongest category of tornado, the EF-5, and any gusts of this strength are capable of causing catastrophic damage.
Figure 2. Visible satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Olivia a few hours before it crossed Barrow Island, Australia, setting a new world-record wind gust of 253 mph. Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency.
Figure 3. Wind trace taken at Barrow Island, Australia during Tropical Cyclone Olivia. Image credit: Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Why did it take so long for the new record to be announced?
The instrument used to take the world record wind gust was funded by a private company, Chevron, and Chevron's data was not made available to forecasters at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) during the storm. After the storm, the tropical cyclone experts at BOM were made aware of the data, but it was viewed as suspect, since the gusts were so extreme and the data was taken with equipment of unknown accuracy. Hence, the observations were not included in the post-storm report. Steve Buchan from RPS MetOcean believed in the accuracy of the observations, and coauthored a paper on the record gust, presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston (Buchan et al., 1999). The data lay dormant until 2009, when Joe Courtney of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was made aware of it. Courtney wrote up a report, coauthored with Steve Buchan, and presented this to the WMO extremes committee for ratification. The report has not been made public yet, and is awaiting approval by Chevron. The verified data will be released next month at a World Meteorological Organization meeting in Turkey, when the new world wind record will become official.
New Hampshire residents are not happy
Residents of New Hampshire are understandably not too happy about losing their cherished claim to fame. The current home page of the Mount Washington Observatory reads, "For once, the big news on Mount Washington isn't our extreme weather. Sadly, it's about how our extreme weather--our world record wind speed, to be exact--was outdone by that of a warm, tropical island".
Comparison with other wind records
Top wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 239 mph (107 m/s) at an altitude of 1400 meters, measured by dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel (2003).
Top surface wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 211 mph (94.4 m/s), Hurricane Gustav, Paso Real de San Diego meteorological station in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on the afternoon of August 30, 2008.
Top wind in a tornado: 302 mph (135 m/s), measured via Doppler radar at an altitude of 100 meters (330 feet), in the Bridge Creek, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999.
Top surface wind not associated with a tropical cyclone or tornado: 231 mph (103.3 m/s), April 12, 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
Top wind in a typhoon: 191 mph (85.4 m/s) on Taiwanese Island of Lanya, Super Typhoon Ryan, Sep 22, 1995; also on island of Miyakojima, Super Typhoon Cora, Sep 5, 1966.
Top surface wind not measured on a mountain or in a tropical cyclone: 207 mph (92.5 m/s) measured in Greenland at Thule Air Force Base on March 6, 1972.
Top wind measured in a U.S. hurricane: 186 mph (83.1 m/s) measured at Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts, during the 1938 New England Hurricane.
References
Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Black, P.G., Buchan, S.J., and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Tropical Cyclone Eyewall Mesovortex: A Physical Mechanism Explaining Extreme Peak Gust Occurrence in TC Olivia, 4 April 1996 on Barrow Island, Australia", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 — Blog Index
There is one scientist and inventor (and the oldest btw) who while working for NASA on space exploration, created the gaia hypothesis.
He released a book back in 2006, The Earth is about to get a morbid Fever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-lovelock-the-earth-is-about-to-catch-a-morb id-fever-that-may-last-as-long-as-100000-years-523161.html
The cooling could mean a self defense effect from earth/gaia to counter this fever.
We actualy can support gaia now by starting with climate farming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar
What a terrible event. I would guess that keeping those memories alive may, in some small way, alleviate the pain.
I have worked with handicapped rider programs over the years - also called "hippotherapy" (and NO! - purple hippos are not involved -
It's about using horses to help children and adults improve core strength, balance, confidence and innumerable other competencies. Those of us who assisted were called "TABs" (i.e., "Temporarily Able Bodied") I found this to be a profoundly meaningful label. There are no "guarantees" "I never promised you a rose garden". . .
Let's be grateful/thankful for what we have and can do today and be prepared to help those that are not as fortunate.
Reply from 203.163.94.10: bytes=32 time=595ms TTL=237
Reply from 203.163.94.10: bytes=32 time=249ms TTL=237
Reply from 203.163.94.10: bytes=32 time=248ms TTL=237
Reply from 203.163.94.10: bytes=32 time=249ms TTL=237
Ping statistics for 203.163.94.10:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 248ms, Maximum = 595ms, Average = 335ms
LOL And I thought I was easily amused.
Lol I'm typing in random countries and adding .com to it
Try tracert instead of ping.
BTW, most .com are here in US. Elsewhere they use initials for the country code.
.nz = New Zealand
.uk = United Kingdom
.ca = Canada
You can find the whole list here.
I have the flagfox add-on on Firefox just for the fun of it.
Whoooo you talking about. :)
(just like Red Skelton, I laugh at my own jokes)
Heard Obama's speech on the radio on my way home from a class tonight.
Thought he made a good pitch for bipartisanship.
AKA 'Let's not forget who we are supposed to be working for' pitch...
And read an article this week about how this last final worst disaster was going to be finally Haiti's turning point.
Think it's great that the French have stuck around longer than anyone to look for survivors and found a 17 year old today still alive after 15 days.
This is when life can be beautiful.
Good night everyone.
Portlight.org, the disaster-relief charity that has sprung up from the hard work and dedication of many members of the wunderground.com community, continues to get aid into Haiti in the hands of those who need it most. Here's a comment posted on the most recent Portlight blog:
"Just want to let y'all know that we did some awesome work in Haiti today. With the help of a Twitter volunteer, we made contact with some folks needing crutches. In particular, we were told about a man whose leg was crushed, and required amputation. Thanks to your generosity and constant support of Portlight, he is now able to get around.
Portlight is bringing mobility, accessibility, and most importantly - HOPE - to the disabled community in Haiti".
Paul Timmons of Portlight is scheduled to appear on NBC Nightly News Thursday or Friday.
Next post
My next post will probably be Friday, but may occur over the weekend.
Jeff Masters
Jeff9641, This is what i always say. If i can save just one person. Kudos!!!
morning all, Hey Ike you may be cooler than me today, The field behind me was on fire last night.Came within 60 yards from the house.All is good now.
Nope...you still got me beat.
I'm at 37.9.
Overcast
Windchill: 21 °F
Humidity: 64%
Dew Point: 21 °F
Wind: 16 mph from the NNE
Wind Gust: 22 mph
Pressure: 30.36 in (Rising)
Visibility: 10.0 miles
UV: 0 out of 16
Clouds: Overcast 2700 ft
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation: 873 ft
Rain is expected to move in by noon today and exist through Friday. Some reports say ice pellets others call for rain freezing on contact
AOI
AOI
AOI
AOI
Humor in Comments
January 28, 2010
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data
Search & Recovery? I don't think so Tim.
Search & Rescue for this little girl who was almost forgotten. Continue on with the resucue efforts, IMO.
re-stoke the fire of passion, re-stoke the fire of charity, There's people dying out there.
Temperatures are confusing in North Florida today. With no wind the temp in Gainsville is 39.4 with a frost warning.The airport makes more sense at 33.
Could this all be from trees and no breeze?
We are surrounded by fire weather, Frost warnings, and flood forecasts but really it is just a nice day out.
Insulation.
Sun is up now.
* From: AAP
* January 28, 2010 9:35PM
A MAN has been struck by lightning in Sydney's outer west and two people have been hospitalised as thunderstorms sweep across NSW.
The Ambulance Service of NSW said a 37-year-old man was hit by lightning while doing the washing up near a window at a YMCA camp in Yarramundi at about 7.30pm (AEDT) tonight.
Paramedics were treating the man, who was suffering neck and shoulder pain, and planned to take him to hospital.
Emergency services were also called to a house in Springwood, in the NSW Blue Mountains, after it was struck by lightning at about 5pm.
"It's come through the window, it hit the curtains and ignited them,'' a firefighter at the scene told media at the scene.
Two people, including a man suffering smoke inhalation, were taken to Blue Mountains Hospital.
A house on East View Avenue in nearby Leura also caught fire after it was hit by lightning, but no one was injured.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 7.30pm, predicting large hailstones, heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds.
Areas which may be affected late on Thursday include Grafton, Taree, Armidale, Tamworth, Narrabri and Walgett.
The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) said people in those areas should move their cars under cover and away from trees, secure loose items and stay indoors away from windows and keep children and pets indoors.
The BoM said thunderstorms had moved through Sydney, Illawarra, Central West Slopes and Lower Western Districts by early Thursday night and the warning was no longer in force for those areas.
An SES spokesman said there had been 33 requests for assistance across the state, including 12 in the Blue Mountains.
''(The storm) looked pretty spectacular on the radar ... but as luck had it, it pretty well passed over mostly unpopulated areas,'' the spokesman told AAP.
"There hasn't been a lot of hail or anything in them, but there's been some pretty heavy rain.''
Welcome back to the real world.
Josh Fisher, Thursday January 28, 2010
It has recently been announced that Australia now holds the world record for the strongest wind gust ever recorded on the Earth's surface.
To be considered for this record, the gust must be recorded on the surface of the Earth by means of an anemometer. This record also excludes any gusts related to tornadoes.
The previous record wind gust was recorded on Mount Washington in the United States back in April of 1934 when a wind gust of 372km/h tore over the summit.
It was not until recently when the World Meteorological Organization conducted a review of global weather and climate extremes, that Australia was rightly named the world record holder.
The new claim to fame for the country occurred on April 10, 1996 when Tropical Cyclone Olivia delivered a gust of 408km/h to Barrow Island, smashing the previous world record.
Many may be wondering why it has taken 14 years to announce this record. It took a panel of experts and an extensive review of the instrumental and statistical data to come to the conclusion that the gust was indeed the new true record.
For now, Australia has taken the title after the 62 year hold that the United States had on the record.
- Weatherzone
I will do my best to ignore the trolls, even when people quote them. I will also try really hard to ignore the issue that shall not be mentioned. :)
Global warming - the issue gets out of hand each time it's discussed in the blogs.
Hey, how are ya, where you from, I myself are in Sydney Australia.
Oh, you are IKE's wife!!! IKE is famous around these parts.
Where in OK? I have kids in Tulsa and Claremore. And welcome to the blogs.
we had a nasty hail storm on the mountains west of Sydney today. that's as close to an ice storm i wanna get.
Ah, sorry, totally misread that! :)
Viewing: 301 - 351
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 — Blog Index