who is telling everyone these lies about texas/louisiana not getting full-strength storms??? hurricane camille, anyone??? that made landfall in LA as a Cat 5. and clearly last year showed, that in inhabited coastal regions, it doesn't take a cat 5 to create a nightmare situation for people.
Katrina was only a cat5 in the Gulf. From the time NO go hit it was a low 3 at strongest. If NO got hit by a full strength 5 they would even bother to rebuild the place. I went thru a real five. Hugo, which turn cat5 over us, hit us in 1989. Had Hugo hit the US like it did us there would be 47 states today. The buildings on the mainland are way too weak to take on a storm, and being below sea level don't help matters. If Carla was over us I would have still been outside mowing the lawn and feeding the dog.
You better come to the Virgin Islands and get somebody to build your houses. That way you wouldn't have to run when u see a hurricane. We stay with it to the end, then come outside like, "That's all!!??, we'll fix this next week!!" And this is max damage.
I was born in 83. I left for school in 01. You could catch a flight because we know when we're getting hit at least 3-4 days in advance, or go between St. Croix/St. Thomas/St. John depending on who gets the lighter blow.
the galveston hurricane of 1900 ended all talk of big storms not being able to strike along the gulf coast, this was a real theory for awhile.
and, again, you only have to go back to camille in louisiana. i just don't know where that concept came out...a couple of people were saying that last year in the aftermath of Rita..that it was impossible for a Cat 5 storm to strike Tex/La. BUT IT'S ALREADY HAPPENED!!!
what i'm talking about is a serious theory they had in the 1800's that for whatever reason no large hurricanes could hit the gulf coast especially around texas. of course this has been proved to be nonsense many times now, but i guess there are still people who still believe it. this theory is one reason galveston was being so built up around the turn of the century and was going to be the "new" new york or whatever they were calling it.
yeah, i've heard that before. you were working chronologically in time...i was working backward wondering how someone today could possibly believe that when we already have experience of knowing they hit.
Missing my point. There will be cat5 in the Gulf. All the beastly winds are near the eye. The most winds you'll see are the gusts from a bit inside the front end. Because the US is just a huge landmass, the hurricane will only get considerably weaker, even along the coast. Therefore when the eye approaches it will have already severly weakened, and you will avoid the full force of the storm, and will never see a cat5 wind gust, cat3 at worst. I live on a tiny dot no bigger than these letters I type. So there is all warm waters and no land near us large enough to weaken a hurricane when it hits. So all we get is full force hurricanes for 10+ hours. Rain damage will do you in, but you don't want to imagine it combined with consistent max gusts for 10+hrs.
no, you're missing my point. camille landed as a cat 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille Camille strengthened further over the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall with a pressure of 909 mbar (hPa), estimated sustained winds of 190 mph (305 km/h), and a peak storm surge of 24 feet (7.3 m); by maximum sustained wind speeds, Camille was the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone recorded worldwide, and one of only four tropical cyclones worldwide to even reach 190 mph winds. The hurricane flattened nearly everything along the coast of the U.S. state of Mississippi, and caused additional flooding and deaths inland while crossing the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. In total, Camille killed 259 people and caused $1.42 billion (1969 USD, $9.14 billion 2005 USD) [3] in damages. http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hurricanecamille.htm Although rare, several other category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic, and supertyphoons in the Pacific, have been as intense. The big difference however, was Camille made landfall when at this rare intensity.
My point is it will make landfall as a cat5 and by the time you're supposed to take cat5 strength it will be a cat3. You will never see a cat5 strength. The eyewall(where the real winds are) is like 300 miles away from the front end. By the time the eyewall connects that cat5 strength is long gone. If a hurricane makes landfall over you and can sustain a cat5 throughout the entire beating you will lose a state. Therefore, the storm strength you receive is cat3. It's like Stomile Swift, we got him, but his potential never came.
Actually, Sextuple, you are incorrect. NO was hit with a 25 foot storm surge and Bilouxi got winds around 125mph. Even 60 miles inland as Houston is, if we got a cat 5 storm in Galveston, the storm would only lose a small amount of strength before getting inside the loop. We're talking going from 140mph winds to 125mph. Katrina was NOT a minor category 3 storm when it reached 60 miles inland in Mississippi. In fact, it was still a minor category 3 storm when it reached CENTRAL Mississippi. Rita was still a strong category 2 storm when it hit Livingston - 100 miles inland. As for this particular storm, it bears watching. There is a LOT that still has to happen for it to become a major storm that threatens Houston, but the Gulf Coast should pay serious attention. There is some warm water in the Gulf currently with the loop current that is there, but the eddy that formed last year that was one of the main reasons for the major intensification of Rita and Katrina has not quite formed and both elements are smaller and cooler than last year. In addition, there is still a great deal of wind shear throughout the region not to mention wind shear surrounding this storm. Also, Chris is a very small storm. Katrina, even at the outset, was a fairly sizable storm. Unlike Katrina, Chris is still VERY vulnerable to the influence of wind shear and dry air. Right now, we probably won't have a terribly accurate forecast track before Saturday or Sunday in terms of the Gulf and there is little chance of making a prediction in terms of strength because its track will be EXTREMELY important, more important actually than other storms because this one is skirting right between two significant areas of wind shear. Any deviation north or south could literally dissipate the storm though I don't really expect that at this point. Keep in mind that both the NHC and Dr. Masters still think this will be a relatively small storm by Sunday despite time over warm waters. Of course, so were Katrina and Rita (at least in terms of strength) when they passed south of Florida. With warmer Gulf waters, anything is possible, so be prepared.
I'd also like to correct one other thing here. You are making a statement as if the storm weakens significantly before going onshore because the outer bands being over land contribute to de-intensification. There have actually been many instances where the reverse is true. The eye is what determines strength. If it remains over warm waters, it can continue to intensify even if a sizable portion of its squall lines are over land. This has happened several times in the warm waters off the Yucatan Peninsula, for example. Southern Florida has been battered by storms that pass from east to west without the eye going on land and the storm continued to strengthen. The GENERAL trend in storms is for it to weaken slightly before going on land, but we aren't talking drops of 2 categories over a couple hundred miles, half ocean and half land. There would have to be a significant number of other elements that come together to make that happen, all of which are uncommon.
again...with camille there were sustained winds of 190mph IN MISSISSIPPI. not out on the water. those were recorded on land.
I didn’t want to start a new thread, but can anyone point me in a good direction to monitor the weather in and around Cancun?? I'm going down there next Friday for a few days and I want to be able to stay on top of the weather to make sure I won’t need to cancel.
