I heard on my car radio a news report interviewing hotel and resort property owners on the East Coast that lost virtually all their bookings this holiday weekend due to warnings for hurricane Earl. A direct quote from one of the people interviewed was:
It was the storm that wasn’t
The Shelter Island Reporter in the Long Island area seems to like that phrasing too for their story:
Rain, heavy at times, is all the Island got from Earl, which was downgraded to a tropical storm by 11 p.m. Strong winds did not reach Shelter Island. The rain total on Shelter Island for Friday was 1.71 inches
About the same time, an email from my friend Jan Null, former lead forecaster for the NWS in San Francisco showed up on my phone. He’s railing on about the bad reporting in the media, which I can understand, because TV networks have been chomping at tghe bit to get a new hurricane lead story, and with the holiday weekend mixed in, it was a perfect media storm. Though, with not much actually happening inland, some reporters were perhaps stretching a bit.
Jan writes:
In watching and listening to coverage of Hurricane Earl, I have heard way too many “meteorologists” speak about “hurricane force gusts”! There’s no such thing! The amount of force of a gust is significantly less than the sustained winds that define a hurricane.
Here’s what I wrote for a piece in Examiner.com last year (http://www.examiner.com/sf-in-san-francisco/meteorological-pet-peeves-part-1-of-3 )
“Hurricane Force Winds” It seems that anytime there is a wind gust over about 60 mph the airwaves and other sources, including NWS statements, are rife with the expression “hurricane force” winds. While this might be good for conveying that it’s windy and might be dangerous, it’s both bad meteorology and bad physics! (And calling it a hurricane force gust doesn’t make it right either) Let’s start with some basics. The threshold for hurricane winds is when the 1-minute sustained winds equal or exceed 74 miles per hour.
Please note the word “sustained”! According to the NOAA Hurricane Research Division, peak 3 to 5-second gusts are approximately 30% higher than their associated sustained winds. This means that a 74 mph sustained wind of a minimal hurricane has gusts in the range of 96 mph. Quite a difference. But that’s just the wind speed.
What about the amount of force from the wind onto a surface that is perpendicular to the wind? From high school physics we remember that the force associated with a given speed is proportional to the square of the wind speed. (For the overachievers out there, the formula to calculate this force is: F = .00256 x V^2, where F is the force in pounds per square foot (psf), and V is the wind velocity in mph)
Consequently, the amount of force with a 74 mph gust is 14.0 psf, while the force from a 96 mph gust is 23.6 psf; or 69% higher. The bottom line is that a gust to 74 mph is NOT even close to hurricane force!
Regards,
Jan
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Jan Null
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Webpage: http://ggweather.com
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To Henry saying Looks like so far the warmistas prediction of many fierce hurricanes this year is off.
Please review all that has been said for this hurricane season – those who said it would be the biggest are (in order)… J. Bastardi, then C. Monckton – and it was not based on GW , but the undisputable AMO and PDO cycle theory they put up out from past statistical and anecdoctical events – very scientific… Ya sure..
Choose your target next time – these are no GW proponents at all, unless there was a miracle i have’nt heard of. LOL.
Earl was kept from getting to Cat 5 and started fading earlier than he would have if it were not for the close timing of the upcoming Synod conjunctions of Jupiter and Uranus.
The hurricane season is not over, it is just on hold, when we get to the post conjunction (after September 21st) and nature does “press resume” on the TS cruise control, the cyclones will be back globally and in a big way.
Be smart cover you own a$$ nobody else will do it for you, be ready for the worst, and hope for the best. Seems to be the operative word here. I have no video data sets for the GOES satellites, so I cannot forecast the most probable storm tracks, only the best timing for there occurrence and probable strength, based on my limited knowledge on the electromagnetic mechanism, that seems to be driving the outer planet’s ability to influence severe weather occurrences.
RE: Phil Nizialek says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Thanks for reassuring me.
However the pessamist in me immediately wonders if they build better in Houston than in Boston, and if they built better in the 1970’s and early 1980’s than they do now.
FYI 1.) Most of the windows were broken by Alicia because the tall buildings were roofed with loose gravel, which flew in the wind. The code was of course changed, and gravel is no longer allowed.
2.) Assuming the codes are the same, buildings likely must be engineered to be stronger in Houston, for the “highest recorded wind” is likely higher, so close to the Gulf and Galveston. 125% of Houston’s 150 mph is obviously more than 125% of Boston’s 100 mph.
3.) Winds in Alicia were around 115 mph at the coast. I’m not sure what they were up at the upper floors of Houston’s skyscrapers. Did they reach the 180 mph reached atop the Blue Hills near Boston in 1938?
4.) Reading how the Trade Towers were able to withstand jetliners crashing into them (and only fell due to the heat of the fires) has made me aware architects and engineers didn’t cut things as close to the minimum-engineering-limit in the 1970’s and 1980’s as they now do. They were not so sure of themselves, and simply didn’t dare save money by cutting the amount of material used to keep the buildings rigid.
5.) Alicia moved slowly and weakened rapidly. The 1938 hurricane was charging north at over 60 mph, and simply didn’t have time to weaken as much as most New England Hurricanes do.
6.) Something like 9 inches of rain fell in Houston in Alicia, over a day. I wonder what the water damage was in those skyscrapers. However Houston is so low and flood-prone I’m sure the skyscrapers were engineered to take it. The 1938 hurricane dropped 10-20 inches of rain in a matter of hours. It came and went so fast a lot of New Englanders hardly knew what hit them. I’m less sure the foundations of Boston’s skyscrapers are built to take it.
7.) People in Houston seem saner and less corrupt than people in Boston (and New Orleans.) I think they have likely recieved far less tax-payer money than Boston (and New Orleans,) but have built a sounder infrastructure.
Regarding another bit of my Alarmism: I have been reassured that the pumps in Boston’s leaky “Big Dig” are not running “at full blast,” as I stated. This is not so much due to fixing the leaks, as it is due to installing bigger pumps. For some reason I find this less than reassuring.
When I am in the mood to be a Alarmist I can also create the perfect track for Perfect Storms that clobber New York City, or pound Philadelphia, and completely stress out their infrastructures. The most reassuring thing is that, while such tracks are possible, they are highly unlikely. Boston (and New Orleans) are a little more likely, but haven’t been hit by a Perfect Storm in my lifetime. (Katrina actually “missed” New Orleans.)
Anyway, thanks for responding.
Wade,
Thanks for responding and making me think.
Regarding: “…And yet you are suggesting that people should throw caution to the wind because of freedom! Well, lets get rid of tsunami warnings because most of those are false alarms too. How dare we limit the freedom of people by telling them of potential danger! ”
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be warned. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be given good advice on what to do, or how to respond. Rather I am suggesting we should be very careful about making things “mandatory.”
I recall reading about a man who refused to leave his home in the face of a wild fire. His house was the only house in the neighborhood that didn’t burn down. He fought the fire by constantly wetting his house down with a dinky little garden hose.
I have also read of a wild fire during a drought in Minnesota that killed more than half the people in a small town. The only survivors waded out into a lake and lay mostly submerged. In that situation a garden hose was utterly useless.
Every situation is different. The question then becomes who is best in the position to assess the danger. The person on the spot? Or some bureaucrat far away?
In most situations I have far more faith in the common man than in the bureaucrats. I also believe a man has a right to fight for his own life. To die, if need be.
In World War 2 it was still a disgrace for a captain NOT to go down with his ship. In certain situations captains had to be ordered to leave their sinking ships, to “transfer the flag” to another ship.
Churchill gave Roosevelt advice on how to convince MacArthur to NOT stay and die with his troops in the Philippines. You see, in the minds of some, there is this thing called “honor, ” and it is better to die with “honor” than live in disgrace.
You reduce things to a far less grand, and far more petty, level, when you state, “I guess (you believe) those laws which ban texting and driving at the same time are also a bad idea, because they limit freedom.”
In principle, yes. I like to believe my fellow Americans have the brains, when educated, to not be idiots. Of course, in reality I watch my daughter do things (such as text while driving) that causes me to doubt whether my fellow Americans are wiser than idiots. Just the other day a man in front of me was obviously texting, and wandered across the double line in the center of the road, and only the blaring of an oncoming horn and a frantic swerve avoided a head-on crash with a Mac truck. “What a &%@ur momisugly#& idiot!” I thought to myself.
So we have to create some laws, because we agree some behavior is idiotic. For example, we have speeding laws. Does that mean we never speed, just a little, very carefully?
We may soon have the technology to put governors in cars, and devices by highways, which prevent anyone from ever speeding. So, if my daughter is about to have a baby, I will have to putter to the hospital at thirty-five. I will have no freedom to say, “In this situation that law no longer applies.”
Either that, or we will find ourselves drawn into a hideously complex tangle of rules, exceptions-to-the-rules, and exceptions-to-the-exceptions-to-the-rules. It will make no one happy but the lawyers.
Perhaps, in the future, our cars will have an override switch that allows us to speed, but a light will automatically flash atop the car announcing we are speeding, (even if we are only speeding very briefly, to pass a slow tractor.) Afterwards we will have to fill out six forms and send them to the Department Of Speeding Infractions, because our in-car computer will automatically report that we have broken the law.
You see, once you make a law, you need to employ people to enforce it. If you put up a no parking sign, you need to hire a meter maid.
I know we have to have some laws, but I feel the fewer the better. (Lawyers would disagree.) I love our freedom to make our choices, (despite evidence to the contrary provided by my own daughter at times.) I feel we are better off as a pack of free idiots than a pack of idiotic slaves.
The only thing worse than a free people is the alternative.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/tatl/flash-wv.html
Hermine is well fueled but has a short road ahead of her.
Gaston needs to make it to the Bahamas for refueling.
Igor has a long, dry, row to hoe before he will see any growth.
Water vapor, THE atmospheric forcing.
Chris of OZ:
You said:
“The media and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have a lot to answer for. Their predictions are rarely right, the wind speeds, tide heights, (I have a large boat in the marina) and storm direction and predicted track, are way off. It has got to the stage where few believe that the storms are anything to worry about. “The boy that cried wolf”.”
You seriously need to study meteorology to understand the complex science that it is. And if you really believe that the BoM are “rarely right”, you must be living on a completely different planet to the one I am. The forecast for Brisbane over the past week has been spot-on, and it was a reasonably complex set-up with a trough triggering a rain event. The forecasts of the BoM get better and better with each passing year, and if they didn’t, the government would not continue to fund them, because it would not save money for society in the long term. It irritates me to no end when people criticise meteorologists about “always being wrong” when they’ve never actually done a proper statistical analysis to prove such statements. Instead they just use anecdotal, highly subjective and selective reports to prove in their minds how “inaccurate” mets are. I have done the statistical analyses, and I can tell you that forecasters, at least in Australia, can be uncannily accurate at times, and the number of false alarms are very low for most events. As for tracking, and I assume you refer here to thunderstorms or cyclones — please, I urge you to study meteorology and fluid mechanics and you might then have some appreciate of WHY it is so damn hard to do. Despite this though, their tracking ability improves all the time. Tide heights and swell forecasts are also very accurate in most parts of the country, so once again I don’t know what planet you live on. And also bear in mind that there has been increasing pressure on the BoM over the last several years due to staff shortages, so it’s a wonder they do as good as job as they do.