Guest essay by Patrick J. Michaels
Global warming buffs have been fond of claiming that the roaring winds of Typhoon Haiyan were the highest ever measured in a landfalling tropical cyclone, and that therefore (?) this is a result of climate change. In reality, it’s unclear whether or not it holds the modern record for the strongest surface wind at landfall.
This won’t be known until there is a thorough examination of its debris field.
The storm of record is 1969 Hurricane Camille, which I rode out in an oceanfront laboratory about 25 miles east of the eye. There’s a variety of evidence arguing that Camille is going to be able to retain her crown.
The lowest pressure in Haiyan was 895 millibars, or 26.42 inches of mercury. To give an idea, the needle on your grandmonther’s dial barometer would have to turn two complete counterclockwise circles to get there. While there have been four storms in the Atlantic in the modern era that have been as strong or a bit stronger, the western Pacific sees one of these approximately every two years or so.
Camille’s lowest pressure was a bit higher, at 905 mb (26.72 inches). At first blush it would therefore seem Haiyan would win the blowhard award hands down, but Hayian had a very large eye around which its winds swirled, while Camille’s was one of the smallest ever measured. At times in its brief life, Camille’s was so small that the hurricane hunter aircraft could not safely complete a 360 degree turn without brushing through the devastating innermost cloud band, something you just don’t want to be near in a turning aircraft. In fact, the last aircraft to get into Camille, which measured 190mph sustained winds, lost an engine in the severe turbulence and fortunately was able to limp home.
Haiyan’s estimated 195mph winds were derived from satellite data, rather than being directly sensed by an aircraft. But winds over the open ocean are always greater than those at landfall because of friction, and the five mph difference between the two storms is physically meaningless.
The chance that an onshore anemometer (wind-speed and direction sensor) will survive such a storm isn’t very high, so the winds are inferred by scientists and engineers from the texture and distribution of what’s left behind.
Every year, our National Hurricane Center summarizes the Atlantic hurricane season in painstaking detail in article published in the prestigious journal Monthly Weather Review. Describing Camille’s destruction, it said:
Maximum winds near the coastline could not be measured, but from an appraisal of splintering of structures within a few hundred yards of the coast, velocities probably approached 175 k[nots].
That’s 201 mph.(Higher winds have been measured on small islands. With Haiyan and Camille, we are talking about storms running into large landmasses, where friction takes place.)
Camille killed 143 along the Gulf Coast, while Haiyan’s toll is currently estimated to be more than 2,500.
The difference, which is more than an order of magnitude, is largely (but not completely) due to poverty. Despite experiencing roughly five landfalling tropical cyclones per year, Philippine infrastructure simply isn’t as sound as it is in wealthier countries. As a grim example, a number of Haiyan’s casualties actually occurred in government-designated shelters that collapsed in the roaring eyewall.
In addition, the transportation infrastructure simply couldn’t handle a mass evacuation. If a similar situation applied to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Camille would have killed thousands at landfall, a fact noted in the Hurricane Center’s report on the 1969 season. Where Haiyan hit in the Philippines, there simply weren’t any roads capable of evacuating the citizens of Tacloban City safely inland, forcing them to ride it out dangerously close to the invading ocean and exposed to winds that pulverized most structures.
So, while we really don’t know which storm had higher winds, we do know that more affluent societies are much less affected by even the strongest storms. As Indur Goklany, (who writes frequently for Cato) has pointed out, if left to develop, the entire world will be much more resilient to climate change than it would be if the ineffective policies to “stop” it slowed economic growth.
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I’m confused by premise; are we limiting this to, “at landfall,” or, at the peak of the storm?
AP has widely reported that at landfall, Haiyan had sustained winds of 147 mph, with gusts of 170 mph. Is there a pressure reading at landfall?
Like Patrick, we have our well earned personal biases. I experienced the weather from Camille up in Northern LA at the time; but in Sep’t 1988, I caught the fury of Hurricane Gilbert, on the island of Cozumel. Gilbert hit it’s peak roughly 12 hours +/- prior to landfall, w/ a reading of 888 mb. Sustained winds (depending on where you look) were in the 185 mph range. Cozumel got most of this, and recorded gusts at the airport were in excess of 225 mph (yep – before it broke).
Gilbert was a massive system (hurricane force winds extended out 115 miles from the center. At one point, TS force winds covered 500 miles (eat your heart out TS Sandy). Gilbert’s eye was also extremely small and tight, down to 5 mile diameter at some point. Notable, was that at landfall, Gilbert was cycling through a massive double eyewall – that was about 50 miles wide; i.e., a very long period of the most extreme sustained winds as it passed by. We were just on the inside of the southern edge of the eye wall – couldn’t see the blue sky – but the winds did cease for a good 20 minutes or so. Actually, we had not a clue that we were in the eye (so little information/comuncation back then), and got caught a few blocks from relative safety, when it roared back to life – a rather intense effort to get back.
Still, for comparison, Carla, in 1961, had hurricane force winds 253 miles wide ( was a 1st grader in Corpus Christy, TX at the time). Compact systems like Andrew had hurricane force winds which were 75 miles wide, and Haiyan some 85 miles wide.
Typhoon Tip still has the record low central pressure at 870 mb (winds at 190), with Wilma coming in second at 882 mb (winds 185).
Off the top of my head (as much of this was) a cyclone in Australia holds the record storm surge – over 40 feet.
Mitch was also a monster storm – which caused well over 10,000 deaths from intense rainfall as it meandered off shore for days.
Plenty of competetion out there and numerous ways of comparing them. The personal experiences are remarkable indeed.
Are there any more recent reports than this one on the casualty numbers?
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/522104/20131114/philippines-list-typhoon-haiyan-casualties.htm#.UovPVvmkpTI
Having experienced both Camille and Katrina the damage was definitely more confined for Camille instead of Katrina. Katrina was a more severe storm because of it’s physical size than Camille. Camille had much higher winds that were not properly recorded because the wind anemometers all failed or so is the story. The damage done by both in the Waveland , Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian Ms. area was similar but actually more extreme for Katrina. Camille did much more damage in a smaller area in Gulfport and Biloxi than what was experienced in Katrina. The old homes along the beach that made it through Camille did not make it through Katrina. Katrina caused storm surge damage all the way from Grand Isle La to Mobile Al. So how much energy is in a storm as opposed to wind speed should definitely be part of the ranking system. We can do that now since we have satellite feeds that show it and we can compute it. The bottom line is a tropical system hitting an area with long expanses of shallow coast line will always be at risk. There is no way for the storm surge to dissipate except in someones home. The Gulf Coast around the mouth of the Mississippi River has long shallows of silt particularly for the home state and just as much for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At least Louisiana has the marshes to dissipate some of the energy, the Mississippi Gulf Coast has only a few barrier islands with the same no means of water to escape which makes it exceptionally vulnerable to storm surge. The central Philippines is very much like our Gulf Coast and it suffered just as much. Unfortunately many people live on the coast and was not able to leave everything they own and died for it. We live in a wealthy country and I know people who died because they thought the same thing. We had almost 30′ storm surge that we know is now possible. I would hope that anyone thinking that they are imune would think otherwise.
Generally since the start of thorough research (c. 1950) until today, Haiyan (895 hPa and 315 km / h) is the fourth most intense tropical cyclone ever observed. Ahead of it: Tip (870 hPa, 315 km / h) from 1979 (took half of the United States!), Camille in 1969 and Nancy in 1961 (12 September has reached today, unbeaten record speed: 345 km / h). Haiyan had a relatively high pressure in its center. In this regard Haiyan not is located even in the first 12-ties strongest typhoons (875 – 885 mbar)! What is interesting, the first 11 in this classification of the most intense typhoons, has happened between 1953 and 1984. It (mainly) was a cool phase of the PDO (http://www.climatedata.info/resources/Forcing/Oscillations/04-Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation-index.gif). Between 1984 and 2010, in the positive phase of the PDO, was not any typhoon from the list of 12 most intense – if we take into account the measured intensity of the low pressure at its center. 9-12 ex aequo “took” place, here, Megi – 2010. And about 2008 years slowly began to start again cool PDO phase …
s…z;
Yep, the Alarmists are going to learn to fear cooling, fer damshure.
An interesting piece in today’s WSJ about recovery efforts after Haiyan.
[Red Cross official Richard Gordon] works from a bland, windowless conference room as red-vested volunteers and boxes of relief goods clog the hallways outside. Around the table, yellow legal pads, scribbled dry-erase boards and glowing computer spreadsheets are meant to keep track of assets heading to the disaster zone. The scene recalls the quip, attributed to U.S. Gen. Omar Bradley, that amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics. It also offers lessons for handling future disasters.
Red Cross staffers here don’t speak of generalized “relief efforts” but of many separate responsibilities, each with numerous component parts: search-and-rescue operations, field medicine, food and water distribution, construction of shelter, electricity production. Items mentioned by Mr. Gordon in a short briefing for visitors from the South Korean Red Cross include ambulances, firetrucks, rubber boats, lights, earthmovers, blood banks, medicine, satellite phones, cots, showers, tents, blankets and mosquito nets. Right now supplies are more important than personnel, he says, citing a case when 68 volunteers went out to clear debris with only 13 chain saws.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304791704579212050096489722