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
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translation
yes
is the answer to the question
Published: April 29th, 2012 at 3:12 pm ET
SOURCE: Takashi Morizumi
This image was published on the photo blog of Takashi Morizumi. It appears Dr. Satoshi Mori was responsible for the x-ray-like view showing black dots spread throughout the body of a small bird from Iitate Village. The dots are said to be radioactive particles of Cs-137 internalized by eating contaminated insects.
Takashi Morizumi is a photojournalist who covers topics in Japan and overseas such as the effects of US military bases and environmental problems. In particular, since the later half of the 90s, he has covered the damages caused by nuclear mining, testing, power plants, and the use of depleteted uranium and other nuclear weapons. -Source
----------------------------
New Zealand
Muttonbird numbers lower
Updated at 8:12 am today
The Japanese nuclear meltdown may have reduced New Zealand's muttonbird population.
A study near Auckland has found a third of the birds, also known as sooty shearwater or titi, failed to return this summer after spending the southern winter in their northern hemisphere base near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Department of Conservation researcher Graeme Taylor says the birds that did return were in a poor condition.
A separate study by Ngai Tahu and Te Papa of 30 chicks from the Ti Ti Islands, near Stewart Island, found no trace of radioactive material - making them safe to eat.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/104545/mut tonbird-numbers-lower
Every AC unit on our quad got displaced.
Like seflagamma wrote the other day, Wilma hardly got mentioned on the news. It was the 5th costliest hurricane and we got ignored. I guess we were very fortunate than so many others that year who got it much worse than we. I have pictures, but I don't know how to upload them.
I reset the cookie for WU and that didn't help. I did update Firefox to 12.0 the other day but it doesn't go on IE8 on this machine either. I also tried it on my Netbook and it didn't work there either. Sounds like a personal problem doesn't it. The browser on that machine was Midori on Puppy Linux. Thanks for your suggestion.
They are, but they show the truth of what is happening there.... The same would be reflected if fish, chicken or vegetables from the supermarket would be analized for radioactivity.... or what about children?
.....I took the dead birds out....
Gov. Bush was pretty lax with Wilma than he was with Frances and Jeanne the year before.
I like how that gif shows moisture chugging on up to the Arctic.
No, they are on slides and 8mm film. :) I wouldn't know how to upload them on the computer.
Oh,I didn't mean that. It was just that we have a love for animals and it was hard to look at that.
Pedley, Try changing your Display on the upper left hand at the top of the blog. Set it to 50. A lot of times it is a particular graphic that can mess up the plus and minus signs.
Anyway, there's no real point to this post, but I've wanted to say that for awhile, and this was the perfect opportunity.
*Referencing yesterday's discussion between him and TAWX, wherein the former asserted that he would like another year like 2004 or 2005.
Just saying that extremes, on both ends of the scale, can be quite exciting to live through. Nature doesn't just have to be appreciated in destruction. Quiet years can be exciting too. Maybe not experientially, but meteorologically.
Sorry, I thought they could be very crude for the blog....
Pedley, here is a link to WU Classic. It was the old website that you can still access. See if it works on this.
Link
The moisture arrived after the cap was broken. Very interesting set up, to be sure.
It was already at 50, so I tried 100, 200 and back to 50. But alas it still is the same. It must be a personal vendetta. lol
It happens.
MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0626
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1031 PM CDT SUN APR 29 2012
AREAS AFFECTED...PORTIONS NRN OK...SWRN MO...NRN PANHANDLE OF
TX...SRN KS.
CONCERNING...SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH 203...205...
VALID 300331Z - 300530Z
THE SEVERE WEATHER THREAT FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH
203...205...CONTINUES.
CONTINUE WW 205. WW 203 MAY BE CLEARED OVER KS BEHIND INITIAL
MCS...ALTHOUGH TRAILING TSTMS OVER NRN TX PANHANDLE PORTION OF WW
STILL WILL POSE THREAT FOR SVR HAIL. MCS AND ITS RELATED GUST FRONT
WILL MERGE WITH WRN LIMB OF OK/KS TSTM BAND DISCUSSED BELOW...WITH
INCREASING COVERAGE OF CONVECTION AND SVR POTENTIAL POSSIBLE FOR
NWRN OK. NET RESULT MAY BE LENGTHY CORRIDOR OF NUMEROUS TSTMS WITH
WIDELY SCATTERED SVR HAIL/GUSTS AND OCNL TORNADO RISK...FROM CENTRAL
MO TO TX PANHANDLE.
BAND OF STG-SVR TSTMS...WITH A FEW EMBEDDED SUPERCELLS...HAS
CONSOLIDATED ESSENTIALLY DIAGONALLY ACROSS WW 205 FROM
DEWEY/WOODWARD COUNTIES OK ENEWD TO BENTON COUNTY MO. PRIMARY
CONVECTIVE BAND SHOULD SHIFT SLOWLY NNEWD TO COVER MORE OF SRN KS
DURING NEXT FEW HOURS...WITH MAIN THREATS BEING DAMAGING
GUSTS...LARGE HAIL AND HEAVY RAIN RATES 2-3 INCHES/HOUR. EPISODIC
MESOCYCLONE INTENSIFICATIONS WILL ENHANCE TORNADO POTENTIAL LOCALLY
IN ONE OR TWO PERSISTENT SUPERCELLS.
ERN BRANCH OF LLJ WAS EVIDENT IN VWP/PROFILER DATA AT 30-40 KT
ACROSS WRN/NRN OK...AND IS EXPECTED TO VEER GRADUALLY THROUGH
REMAINDER OVERNIGHT HOURS. FAVORABLE LOW-LEVEL MOISTURE TRANSPORT
WILL CONTINUE ABOVE SFC. MEANWHILE...BOUNDARY-LAYER MOISTURE
CONTENT...SAMPLED AS SFC DEW POINTS MID-UPPER 60S OVER NRN OK...SERN
KS AND SWRN MO...WILL SLOW DIABATIC SFC COOLING ENOUGH TO KEEP
EFFECTIVE INFLOW PARCELS SFC-BASED FOR TSTM BAND THROUGH AT LEAST
6Z. RELATED CORRIDOR OF RELATIVELY MINIMIZED MLCINH WAS EVIDENT IN
FCST SOUNDINGS AND PLANAR ANALYSES...ALONG WITH MLCAPE RANGING FROM
AROUND 1500 J/KG OVER SWRN MO TO 2500 J/KG OVER W-CENTRAL/SWRN OK.
THIS WILL REMAIN JUXTAPOSED WITH ROUGHLY 50-KT EFFECTIVE SHEAR
MAGNITUDES. MEAN WIND AND DEEP-SHEAR VECTORS WILL BE ALIGNED
STRONGLY PARALLEL TO MAIN TSTM PLUME...SUGGESTING CONTINUED
PREDOMINANCE OF LINEAR MODE WITH EMBEDDED SUPERCELLS.
..EDWARDS.. 04/30/2012
See, now that is funny. I clicked your link and opened another window with the old classic site. That is the one I usually use. So, I changed it to the new site and it worked. Guess I will view the blog from the new site. No big deal in doing that. Thank You for that suggestion and we have learned that maybe (duh) the old site doesn't play nice with that feature. Any one else out there use the old site still. Does that mess it up for you as well. Anyways Thanks for your help Sensei. You Rock...
All in good time, Grasshopper!
It appears that it doesn't function nice on the old site. I use NoScript and https everywhere and AdBlock but I am guessing that it is just the old site that maybe the issue. I like the old site, but skip back and forth. My home page is the old site, but from there it is all over the place and it may just be that when I went to use that feature I was on an old site page. That is all I can think of. Never paid attention to which site I was on when I viewed the Masters Blog. Thanks for your help as well. I like that no one tole me to open a ticket with the blog people to figure that out. Well done......
I forget to sign-out half the time. I did that update and I thought that it might be the problem but couldn't find an answer. It looks like it doesn't like the old "classic" site for that - feature. Lesson learned.
Good Night Nigel.
Hey, aspectre. You are probably the only one on here who knows why I call Pedley 'Grasshopper'.
According to The Big Bang Theory: equal parts of creme de menthe, creme de cacao, and fresh cream poured over crushed ice, shaken then strained into a chilled cocktail glass
LOL this really made me laugh, especially because of its similarity to the NWS wording for their special weather statement for a thunderstorm, lol.
Light rain
Temperature 72 °F
Winds from the E at 16 mph
Satellite imagery suggests more of the same for quite some time....
Viewing: 1351 - 1401
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