Clark
(Meteorologist)
Fri Nov 18 2005 05:12 AM
Re: Recon & Wilma

The NWS profiles are always for maximum sustained winds found anywhere within the storm. Those don't necessarily occur over land; oftentimes, they do not. Furthermore, the strongest winds after landfall are generally found in downbursts as the storm starts to spin down -- as a tropical cyclone over waters that can support the storm, thereis an inherent resilency to downbursts/downdrafts; but, as it moves over land, this goes away and you see some very strong winds come to the surface. That can account for a lot of the spatial variation and localized strong winds inland found with storms.

There's not really a disconnect between any of the analyses...they are just detailing different but somewhat similar/related quantities. The HRD wind profiles go up to about 105kt -- 120mph -- over water, while Doppler velocities need to be reduced to the surface (just like recon). For 4000ft above ground level, there's going to be a reduction of 10-15% to the surface, giving you an estimate of about 115mph. Over land, you are going to see a lot of frictional and spindown processes further reducing the winds, though that 115mph-130mph gives you a fair estimate of what you might see in downbursts. The 135mph is from the NHC over water and, with all of the new data we have that they didn't have in realtime (or just simply didn't have the time to process), we may see revisions when they do the post-season analysis for the best track data set.



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