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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Light rain
Temperature 72 °F
Winds from the E at 16 mph
Satellite imagery suggests more of the same for quite some time....
A MIDDLE TO UPPER LEVEL LOW AND ASSOCIATED TROUGH IS CENTERED
OVER THE FLORIDA STRAITS AND IS PROVIDING MOST OF THE SW NORTH
ATLC WITH PLENTY OF MOISTURE AND OVERCAST CLOUDINESS W OF 60W.
INFRARED SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES THAT SCATTERED SHOWERS AND
ISOLATED TSTMS ARE OCCURRING OVER A LARGE AREA FROM 20N-30N
BETWEEN 60W-81W. THE RIDGE AXIS OVER NORTHERN FLORIDA AND THE SW
NORTH ATLC PRESENT YESTERDAY HAS SLOWLY ERODED AND SHIFTED
EASTWARD AS A WEAK STATIONARY FRONT REMAINS ANALYZED TO THE
NORTH OF THE DISCUSSION AREA ALONG 33N BETWEEN 70W AND THE SOUTH
CAROLINA COAST. OTHERWISE...THE SW NORTH ATLC CONTINUES TO
EXPERIENCE E-SE WINDS IN THE RANGE OF 10 TO 20 KT WITH POSSIBLE
STRONGER WINDS S OF 27N W OF 70W DUE TO THE CLOSE PROXIMITY OF
THE SURFACE TROUGH ACROSS THE FLORIDA STRAITS.
Looks like flood warnings all along the line of activity.
MONROE UPPER KEYS-
INCLUDING THE COMMUNITIES OF...KEY LARGO
534 AM EDT MON APR 30 2012
.NOW...
THROUGH 630 AM...AREAS OF MODERATE TO HEAVY RAIN WILL CONTINUE ACROSS
MUCH OF THE UPPER KEYS...FROM NORTH KEY LARGO TO CRAIG KEY. MANY
LOCATIONS WILL RECEIVE ADDITIONAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF ONE QUARTER TO
THREE QUARTERS OF AN INCH...WITH LOCAL AMOUNTS OVER ONE INCH LIKELY.
PONDING OF WATER ON ROADWAYS AND IN LOW LYING SPOTS CAN BE
EXPECTED...AND MOTORISTS SHOULD USE CAUTION. WIND GUSTS OF 30 TO 35
MPH WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE WITH THE HEAVIER SHOWERS. MOVEMENT OF THE
ACTIVITY WILL BE GENERALLY TO THE WEST AT 15 T0 20 MPH.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY RUSKIN FL
421 AM EDT MON APR 30 2012
FLZ039-042-043-048>052-055>057-060>062-065-GMZ830 -850-853-856-870-
873-876-010830-
LEVY-CITRUS-SUMTER-HERNANDO-PASCO-PINELLAS-HILLSB OROUGH-POLK-
MANATEE-HARDEE-HIGHLANDS-SARASOTA-DE SOTO-CHARLOTTE-LEE-
TAMPA BAY WATERS-TARPON SPRINGS TO SUWANNEE RIVER OUT 20 NM-
ENGLEWOOD TO TARPON SPRINGS OUT 20 NM-
BONITA BEACH TO ENGLEWOOD OUT 20 NM-
TARPON SPRINGS TO SUWANNEE RIVER OUT 20 TO 60 NM-
ENGLEWOOD TO TARPON SPRINGS OUT 20 TO 60 NM-
BONITA BEACH TO ENGLEWOOD OUT 20 TO 60 NM-
421 AM EDT MON APR 30 2012
THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR WEST CENTRAL AND SOUTHWEST
FLORIDA.
.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT.
...THUNDERSTORM IMPACT...
ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE POSSIBLE ACROSS EXTREME SOUTHWEST FLORIDA
THIS AFTERNOON. NO SEVERE WEATHER IS EXPECTED AND THE THREATS WILL BE
CONFINED TO CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING.
...HIGH WIND IMPACT...
EAST WINDS WILL INCREASE TO AROUND 20 MPH ACROSS THE AREA WITH
GUSTS TO 30 MPH THIS AFTERNOON. A LAKE WIND ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT
THIS AFTERNOON ACROSS CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF THE AREA.
...WIND AND SEA IMPACT...
A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT ACROSS THE SOUTHERN GULF THROUGH
EARLY TUESDAY MORNING AND WILL BE IN EFFECT FOR THE CENTRAL GULF
BEGINNING THIS EVENING. WINDS WILL INCREASE OUT OF THE EAST TO
BETWEEN 20 AND 25 KNOTS AND SEAS WILL BUILD UP TO 7 FEET WELL
OFFSHORE.
.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY.
...THUNDERSTORM IMPACT...
ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ARE POSSIBLE EACH DAY THROUGH THE REST OF
THE WEEK. SEVERE WEATHER IS NOT ANTICIPATED AND THE PRIMARY THREAT
FROM STORMS WILL BE CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING.
...WIND AND SEA IMPACT...
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORIES WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE CENTRAL AND
SOUTHERN GULF WATERS THROUGH EARLY TUESDAY MORNING. ELEVATED WINDS
AND SEAS WILL PERSIST THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...
SPOTTER ACTIVATION WILL NOT BE NEEDED TODAY.
$$
JOHNSON
What do you mean Key Largo no rain.
AS SUCH...24 HOURS
RAINFALL AMOUNTS REGISTERED FROM BOTH AVAILABLE COOP AND HANDAR
STATIONS THROUGHOUT THE UPPER AND MIDDLE FLORIDA KEYS HAVE SHOWN
AMOUNTS BETWEEN 2 AND 4 INCHES. (ENDING 8 PM EDT LAST EVENING)
No rain in TAMPA, is more like it. [That's what I get for skimming and not reading.]
Ouch
The earth also has a history of switching polarity, in the geology. If it switched now, would that help the weather or mess up our electrical grid?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136503/F ears-West-Country-towns-flooded-35-warnings-issued -England-Wales-wettest-April-EVER.html
I'd love to see a color video version of the same. At the higher wind speeds, I can't make sense of the black and white images.
Do the drop sonds ever send back imagery or are they whipped around too much to make that useful?
I think that one might be totaled out for hail damage. Just maybe.
And good morning, everyone!
LOL
Has it rained at all up south?
Morning,
We had a day of rain last Wednesday,
but not much since then.
...looks like storms cooking up,
on the Tongue of the Ocean.
Last Year
Should be some 90F temps north and far south of atlanta as well.
This thing seems to be grabbing whatever TCHP type energy that it can from wherever it can find it. Yesterday it was the Gulf Stream as it breaks around towards the FL coast. The day before it had a finger in the warm toasty drink south of Cuba. Who knows what it'll be doing tomorrow.
The Low appears to be getting its act together.
How much rain have you had so far?
Rainfall Rates exceed .30 inches an hour.
Windsheild damage $2-400, body damage = totaled.
The closest we came was a few tornadoes on the fringes of the March 2nd Outbreak.
Our severe weather seems to have gone the way of the NE winter, One and Done, with just some minor other stuff.
They said there might be some early morning clouds, but there were none.
The only thing i see is sunburn.
Maybe about the rain by florida.
That vehicle was pummeled TAwx13
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL
1008 AM EDT MON APR 30 2012
AMZ630-650-651-670-671-301615-
BISCAYNE BAY-
COASTAL WATERS FROM JUPITER INLET TO DEERFIELD BEACH, FL OUT 20 NM-
COASTAL WATERS FROM DEERFIELD BEACH TO OCEAN REEF, FL OUT 20 NM-
WATERS FROM JUPITER INLET TO DEERFIELD BEACH, FL EXTENDING FROM
20 NM TO 60 NM-
WATERS FROM DEERFIELD BEACH TO OCEAN REEF, FL EXTENDING FROM 20 NM
TO THE TERRITORIAL WATERS OF THE BAHAMAS-
1008 AM EDT MON APR 30 2012
.NOW...
WIDESPREAD SHOWERS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC WATERS AND
BISCAYNE BAY THIS MORNING. MOST OF THE ACTIVITY CONTINUES TO BE TO
THE EAST OF MIAMI DADE AND BROWARD COUNTIES. THESE SHOWERS WILL
MOVE WEST NEAR 20 KNOTS AND PRODUCE DOWNPOURS...SOMETIMES HEAVY
AND GUSTY WINDS TO NEAR 30 KNOTS WITH THE HEAVIEST SHOWERS. AN
OCCASIONAL LIGHTNING STRIKE IS POSSIBLE WITH THIS ACTIVITY.
$$
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