vineyardsaker
Weather Guru
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Loc: New Smyrna Beach, FL
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Hi,
I took a look at the various pictures available on the interner of past hurricanes and I came across this one:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/images/hurr-charley-montage.jpg (also attached to this post)
Did you notice that seems to cross the entire Florida peninsula as a Cat.4?!
I always suspected that simply *could* not weaken much due to its very fast forward motion and this data, if correct, seems to suspect my impression.
I live in New Smyrna Beach were a lot of people suspected that 's left-side eyewall passed over our houses as a Cat 2 if not Cat 3. On this picture, it seems that drops from Cat 4 to Cat 1 almost immediately somwhere between (this is my best guess) Lake Ashby - Samsula - Port Orange. Would this not suggest that it did probably pass with Cat 2-3 winds over New Smyrna?
Many thanks for any pointers,
VS
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Charley(eyewall), Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma, Irma, Ian (eyewall), Nicole
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dem05
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Loc: Port Charlotte, FL
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Well, I can definately understand your statements about (although, I was living in Tallahassee at the time hit). With that said, the picture you saw was misleading, it is based on advisory to advisory intensities and doesn't show the weakening transition. All data and wind measurements confirmed that was a Category 3 in Hardee county and steadily weakened to a Cat 1 before reaching the East Coast.
I'd like to share the official survey of maximum winds in MPH with you: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Storm_pages/charley2004/charley_flswath_mph.pdf
From a personal standpoint, I can understand why the folks of New Symerna may have felt the winds were stronger that they actually were. After , I have been through 6 Hurricane in my work. At first, I overestimated what the winds were like on the basis that I had never seen winds that strong before. It is quite easy to have the sensation they are much stronger, when one had not seen something that strong or had not been around it in a long time. To that end, winds to category 1 strength had not been experienced in that part of the state in a long, long time.
Edited by dem05 (Thu Jun 22 2006 11:41 PM)
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Wx Student
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Loc: Port Orange, Florida
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Granted, did do a fair amount of damage in this area. I would attribute that to the time between storms in this area. The only storm I remember in my lifetime living here of any strength was Erin in 95', hardly a barnburner in these parts. For what it's worth, my wind gauge peaked at 81 mph during that storm, but your results might have varied.
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Wx Student - Coming to a TV near you....in about 4 years or so. Maybe.
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vineyardsaker
Weather Guru
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Loc: New Smyrna Beach, FL
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Quote:
From a personal standpoint, I can understand why the folks of New Symerna may have felt the winds were stronger that they actually were.
Ok. Let me give you my highly subjective and personal point of view. was my first hurricane. So I am definitely not an expert. But this is what I lived through during what some say is only a Cat 1 hurricane.
At about 11PM the rain was flying *horizontally*. Since the winds were initially from the south east (due to the rotation) I could stand outside my house behind my garage facing the north. I was standing with a powerful flashlight (we had all lost power by then) and, hidden behind the wall of my garage, I could see the rain 'falling' *horizontally*. About 20 yards away I could see palm trees bent *horizontally*. And the worst was the sound: the low rumbling frequencies of a passing freight train. At about 1115 we had a tornado pass over our neighbours' hourse. It ripped out the roof and every single ceiling in the house later caved in due to water leaks. In fact, in our subdivision, our house was the ONLY ONE who did not have a single ceiling cave in due to 's tornadoes.
After the 1115 tornado (my time is my best estimate - I was not exacly paying close attention to time) my wife, my three kids and myself spent three hours sitting in a walkin closet listening to the debris going pang! pang! pang! while hitting our house. The rest of the noise was an omnious low-frequency brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr like a giant was growling at us from the sky. At about 1AM it was all over. My wife and I exited our house to see if any of our neighbours needed help. Outside there was a strange kind of 'mist' which in the beams of our flashlights seemed to be constantly shifting in all directions, but without much power. My impression is that passed over us in about 3 hours only and that its winds were way over 75mph, way way over.
So a cat 4 hit Punta Gorda and was going fast enough to cross our small city of New Smyrna Beach in 3 hours. And at that speed it was down to a Cat 1 (without ever being a Cat 3 or Cat 2 according to the data) by the time it hit us?!
Maybe. But this is really hard to believe. It sure felt like something huge, massive, scary and infinitely powerful.
Maybe I am being too emotional. But I can tell you that this was the single most frightening manifestation of nature I have ever seen (and I have seen plenty of storms, including at sea).
YMMW
VS
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Charley(eyewall), Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma, Irma, Ian (eyewall), Nicole
Edited by vineyardsaker (Fri Jun 23 2006 12:02 PM)
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dem05
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Loc: Port Charlotte, FL
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I sent a link to the HRD wind analysis earlier, but if it is helpful...I'd like to share some other links with you:
Zoomed Wind swath in Volusia County of : http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mlb/charley/charley_windswath.jpg
NWS Melbourne Summary and Reports: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mlb/charley/index.html
NWS Tampa Summary: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tbw/html/tbw/HurricaneSeason2004.htm
NHC Hurricane Tropical Cyclone report: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL032004_Charley.pdf
NHC Advisory Archive for : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2004/CHARLEY.shtml?
(This one shows that at the 5PM Advisory, was 140MPH(Cat4 entering DeSoto County), at 7PM intermediate advisory it was down to 115MPH(Cat 3 entering Polk County), 9PM intermediate was 90MPH (Cat 1 near Orlando), and 11PM down to 85MPH (Cat 1 near Daytona).)
Your statements accurately demonstrate why even category 1 strength hurricanes are nothing to take for granted and individuals should prepare for them just the sam as stronger systems. You mentioned tornados in the neighborhood. A tornado would have been stronger than the storms winds, and would have produced damage greater than that of the storms sustained winds, but are considered independant of the storms strength. Hurricanes typically have tornadoes and are most prevalent in the right front quadrant of the storm.
With that said, I also had a chance to survey damage in the path of hurricane in the days after the storm and many times since. If you ever get a chance to take a gas tank trip, you can definately see the path of to this day...and you will notice how it weakened on it's path. Some evidence is still there in Kissimmee, more in Lake Wales, but once you get to traveling south on US 17 through Hardee into DeSoto, then Charlotte County you can really see what a Category 3 or 4 hurricane can do. Especially if you take note of the trees. To this day, about half of Downtown Punta Gorda remains as empty dirt lots and homes and buildings in Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, DeSoto and Hardee county are still in need of repairs from that storm.
I stand behind all the data that was produced in the Hurricane Research Divisions output, along with that of the actual surface observations, recon reports and National Hurricane Center advisories. The map that you posted shows does not represent the gradual weakening of ...at 5PM advisory, was a Category 4...at 11 PM it had weakened to a category 1 (with weakening gradually occurring all the time. That Cat 4 line is just and extension of the points between the 5PM and 11 PM advisory...intermediate advisoryies were not included in the map, so it's easily misleading.
Edited by dem05 (Fri Jun 23 2006 02:36 PM)
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vineyardsaker
Weather Guru
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Posts: 150
Loc: New Smyrna Beach, FL
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Thanks for all the very interesting data and your explanations.
I noticed this interesting advisory:
ZCZC MIATCPAT3 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
BULLETIN
HURRICANE ADVISORY NUMBER 20
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
11 PM EDT FRI AUG 13 2004
(...)
CHARLEY IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 25 MPH...AND THIS
MOTION IS EXPECTED TO WITH AN INCREASE IN FORWARD SPEED DURING THE
NEXT 24 HOURS.
(...)
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 85 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SLOW
STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST ONCE THE CENTER OF MOVES BACK
OVER WATER.
Which brings one question to my mind: could actually have strengthened at the time it was over Volusia County? After all, if winds were at 85mph and the system was moving forward at 25mph and accelerating then that would mean that for those who were in the right hand corner right next to (and later inside) the eyewall - as New Smyrna Beach was - would have 110mph sustained winds (with higher gusts) which would give us locally near Cat 3 force winds (25+mph + 85+mph = 110+ mph)
Does this make sense, or am I missing something?
Many thanks,
VS
PS: please take a look at the attached file. It shows a radar image of 's eyewall right over my house (right under the red dot of 's miniscule but rapidly rotating eye). At that time a good chunk of the system had already returned over water. Could that have made even stronger?
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Charley(eyewall), Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma, Irma, Ian (eyewall), Nicole
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