Flhurricane.com - Central Florida Hurricane Center - Tracking Storms since 199531 Years of Hurricanes Without the Hype - Since 1995

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I noticed a similar phenomenon monitoring Matthew last year. The winds aloft, that are taken to be the true measure of the storm, aren't at all the winds that reach to the ground.

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I've noticed this in multiple hurricanes over the years. Not sure how the NHC calculates the differences between flight level and surface winds but it appears their ratio is wrong -OR- combined with the 8 min average vs the 1 min average the numbers are radically different.

I've always though the NHC should adjust the "estimated" winds down to true wind speed once they had good ground based data (buoys or other known calibrated weather stations). However they seem to stick with flight level winds. I do believe some of this is CYA, better to estimate high then to give people a false sense of security with a Cat lower forecast. In the past I've seen report of gusts, micro bursts, mini-tornados, down drafts and other small-scale higher intensity winds in certain areas due localized environmental conditions during land falling 'canes.

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South FL Native... experienced many tropical systems, put up the panels for:
David 79 - Floyd 87 - Andrew 92 - Georges 98 - Frances 04 - Wilma 05 - Matthew 16 - Irma 17
Lost our St James City rental property to Ian 22

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