Category 5 Katrina Winds to 175MPH - TD#13 Forms East of Caribbean Islands

#102 Published Sunday August 27, 2005 at 3:30 pm EDT
http://www.kn4lf.com/flwx1.htm

Sorry folks but I lost my web server at around 1:00 am EDT this morning and could not update my weather forecasting website. It could not be worse timing too. I just got it back online at 3:15 pm EDT.

As of the 2:00 pm EDT advisory CAT 5 Katrina continues with a sustained wind of 175 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph, is at position 26.5 deg. N 88.6 deg. W, with a minimum barometric pressure of 26.75" and is currently on a NW heading at a speed of 13 mph. Looking at latest satellite imagery she appears to be on a NNW heading or 350 deg. but this could be a trochoidal wobble. Right now Katrina is as strong as CAT 5 Camille was in 1969, only much larger.

I still think that Katrina will turn NNW-N-NNE and pass just east of the Mississippi River Delta due to the influence of the strengthening and digging mid level longwave trough current located over the Central Plains region. But this will still threaten the Louisiana Delta with total inundation as well as on the east side of the City Of New Orleans.

My current landfall window continues at Pascagoula, MS on the left side and Navarre, FL on the right side, with the bulls eye along the Alabama-Florida border. But due to the size of this tropical cyclone the damage window will extend from Morgan CIty, LA in the west to Apalachicola, FL in the east on early Monday morning 08/29/05.

I'm now hearing of some mandatory evacuations being ordered along the Alabama coast eastward to the western Florida panhandle, so a horrific human catastrophe may be averted. If Katrina were to hold her present strength then we would be looking at an incredible storm surge of 15-20 feet, with some spots seeing 28-32 feet just to the right of the eyewall at landfall. Some of the surge may also reach the west coast of the Florida peninsula too.

It takes a special set of circumstances for a CAT 5 tropical cyclone to form and it is very hard for a tropical cyclone to hold at a strong CAT 5 level for very long. But she is so strong that she may only weaken back to a weak CAT 5 (oxymoron) at landfall. But at some point she will undergo another eye wall reformation cycle (ERC), will leave the very warm loop current, enter shallower shelf water and dry air entrainment and wind shear will increase and she may weaken back to a CAT 4 at landfall. But a CAT 4 will still cause catastrophic damage.

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Take Care,
Thomas F. Giella
Retired Meteorologist & Space Plasma Physicist
Plant City, FL, USA

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