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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » Pre-Hurricane Discussion : Now HurricaneDean (Page 2)

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Author Topic: Pre-Hurricane Discussion : Now HurricaneDean
Lyrhawn
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Felix has now strengthened to a Cat 5, with sustained winds of 165mph. It still has at least a day until it makes major landfall in either Mexico or Central America.
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Tatiana
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ZOMG! Here's the 5 day track, with wind speed and so on. There's no such thing as a category six but if there were it would have wind speeds over 180 mph. Felix now winds at 165 mph. [Frown]
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aspectre
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The NationalHurricaneCenter sent out a HurricaneHunter between 8pmEDT and 11pmEDT advisories, and scrubbed the mission.
Possibly because the variability&strength of the wind gusts made flight too dangerous/bumpy. Additional rumor is that the HurricaneHunter was getting smacked by 200+mph hail.
And possibly because they were getting dropsonde readings well in excess of 200mph/174knots/322kph at 100metres/330feet. Which is so far out of the ballpark of normal hurricane windspeeds -- some of the higher readings were at the theoretical limit for sustained windspeeds at 100metres -- that they mighta decided to head home to check out their instrumentation for problems.

So the 11pmEDT readings were via interpretation of satellite data instead of the much more accurate HurricaneHunter readings.

[ September 03, 2007, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]

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Tatiana
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Interesting, aspectre! How did you find all that out? You amaze me!
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Tatiana
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11amEDT reading this morning says 160 mph. Any new rumors from the HurricaneHunter?

I'm upset because now it's supposed to cut a swath through Central America, where there are a lot of vulnerable people living. I hope they don't get mudslides and stuff. Hopefully Felix will break up when it gets to the mountains.

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Lyrhawn
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After dropping to a Cat 4, Felix is back up to 160mph as a Cat 5. Is is poised to strike Honduras, and then into Nicaragua. Belize is expected to take heavy damage. Many vacation homes and hotels lie directly in the path of the storm, which is expected to create up to 18 feet of storm surge, and up to a foot of rain in isolated areas.

Belize is worried that the storm will devastate their crops, while Honduras fears a repeat of the 1998 storm that killed thousands with mudslides that erased entire villages from the map.

Current radar image of Felix. The eye is about to make landfall.

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Lyrhawn
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Felix has dealt out most of its damage, and is done to a Tropical Storm now. The big fear is currently the flood levels of rain being dropped.

There's a system currently organizing off the coast of Georgia and Florida that has some storm trackers worried. An Air Force storm tracker is scheduled to be sent up tomorrow I believe to get more information. Sheer winds from the north are keeping it from becoming a serious storm for the moment, but it's still organizing, so an eye is being kept on it.

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Lyrhawn
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That system has organized itself into Tropical Storm Gabrielle, and is chugging towards North Carolina.

It's max sustained winds seem to be in the 40's, and it is expected to strengthen but not reach hurricane status by tonight when the outer rain bands are expected to start lashing the Outer Banks.

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aspectre
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Some pictures of the HurricaneFelix aftermath that'll give you a better idea of what "tens of thousands of homes destroyed" means to Nicaraguans and Hondurans.

"How did you find all that out?"

Got really interested in satellite photos of what-would-become-Dean while it was still an Invest, ie the blob of clouds before a storm becomes a TropicalDepression.
Googled the Invest*number and ended up within Dr.JeffMasters'WunderBlog (look at top left for a link in) where people interested in hurricanes hang around gossiping, and posting a lot of great photos and charts.
Been checking the blog and gossip everytime things have looked interesting ever since.

While the Archive isn't kept up to date, you can read as-yet-unarchived previous blogs
by changing the number between entrynum= and &tstamp in the address, eg:
http://www.weatherunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=776&tstamp=200709 has info about the HurricaneHunter plane being grounded for inspection after taking Hugo**like abuse.
And http://www.weatherunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=780&tstamp=200709 is mostly about the ArcticIceMelt and the Felix aftermath while waiting for Invest99L / what-would-become-TropicalStormGabrielle to firm up, with most of the gossip devoted to 99L

* Always sequentially designated with numbers between 90 and 99 appended with an L to represent the Atlantic.

** The Hugo-flight link is posted on the first page of this thread.

[ September 11, 2007, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]

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aspectre
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Since Category5 seems to have become normal, isn't it about time to establish a Category6
Given that Cat.2 (96mph) +15mph = Cat.3 (111mph) +20mph = Cat.4 (131mph) +25mph = Cat.5 (156mph)
then Cat.5 +30 should = Cat.6 (186mph-to-220mph)

Contrary to the Saffir-SimpsonScale's creators, there is a significant difference in survivability between 156mph and 186mph winds.

Power goes up by the cube of the windspeed:
111 times 111 times 111 divided by 96 divided by 96 divided by 96 equals approximately 1.546
131/111 cubed = ~1.644
156/131 cubed = ~1.689
186/156 cubed = ~1.695
ie Comparing minimum windspeeds:
a Cat.3 wind packs 1.546times the power of a Cat.2 wind
a Cat.4 packs 1.644times as much as a Cat.3
a Cat.5 packs 1.689times a Cat.4
A Cat.6 wind would be 1.695times as strong as a Cat.5 , 2.86times a Cat.4 , 4.7times a Cat.3 , 7.3times a Cat.2

Most recently-built institutional-type structures -- federal buildings, hospitals, often state buildings, university buildings, many school buildings, heavy-use bridges, skyscrapers, etc -- built in hurricane-prone areas are designed to survive Cat.5 up to a point. The point being approximately where the hypothetical Cat.6 starts.
Because of that unusually strong engineering&construction, such buildings are often designated as emergency shelters in disaster-preparedness plans. Oh windows may get blown out and the water-proofing on roofs may get blown off, but people hunkering down in the central cores have a very STRONG chance of getting though a Cat.5 hurricane alive.
The strongest of the "hurricane-proof" single homes and small apartment complexes may be able to withstand up to 185mph without structural collapse. Many of those which survive will be structurally damaged beyond economically-sensible repair.

Between the hypothetical Cat.6 minimum and maximum, "hurricane-proof" houses and small apartment complexes will be destroyed.
Many of the institutional buildings will suffer severe structural damage though most (probably) won't undergo structural collapse. The probability of survival of those sheltering inside drops below what any sane person would choose.
Delivering aid and carrying out evacuations in the aftermath will be extremely difficult:
Most bridges will probably be unusable.
Roads will be stewn with cars blown through the air, heavy trucks and construction equipment rolled and shoved across the ground, and broken buildings lifted off of their foundations before being redeposited elsewhere.

About the only things built to intactly survive a Cat.6 are nuclear powerplants, "survivable military" command&control centers and bomb shelters, military weapons manufacturing/storage/disposal facilities, and a few NASA buildings.

In other words, Cat.6 would be shorthand for "Evacuate or Die"

[ September 18, 2007, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]

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Tatiana
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Those pictures are sobering. <goes to donate money to humanitarian aid fund of her church>
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