Camille not a cat-5 at Mississippi landfall???

[hurricanetrack]

I was just back in Mississippi doing some work with Lowe's (we are hatching a HUGE project that will simply astound everyone) and was talking with locals who went through Camille. Of interest to me was the best track data- the same data I use on my hurricanetrack.com JAVA history maps (http://www.hurricanetrack.com/JavaHist/).

I noticed that the last position before landfall the pressure was 909 mb and the wind was 165 knots.

Then- just after landfall, the wind was down to 100 knots. That is a huge decrease in winds even for a small hurricane. Knowing what we do about how hurricanes tend to weaken along the northern Gulf Coast right as they are making landfall, I would not be surprised to see Camille as a category four hurricane when it hit Mississippi just west of Waveland. Also of note is the fact that water (storm surge) did NOT make it past the railroad tracks in Waveland (I was told this by a long-time resident). Yet during Katrina, the water went WELL past the tracks and leveled the city in most places south of the tracks. This is an incredible difference. I know what many will say- "Katrina was so large". But we have to consider that IF Camille was even a 160 mph hurricane as it made landfall in MS that surely those insane winds would have driven the water past the tracks in Waveland. Let's think about it- Waveland would have been just to the right of the eye- just like it was in Katrina. So how could a cat-5 eyewall NOT drive water anywhere near as far as Katrina did?

I need to do some research when time permits. Since Mike Watkins and I were there for Katrina- in Gulfport, that is, and we saw the enormity of the surge damage only hours after it happened, I am simply vexed as to how Camille could have been a category 5 at the MS landfall.

Of course, it may all be very simple- it usually is- that Camille was smaller in size and Katrina was mammoth. More water was pushed ahead of Katrina than Camille. That might be the answer but I would still be inclined to think that cat-5 winds would have pushed the MS Sound deep in to Hancock county as Katrina did.

It is interesting now that we have a new benchmark. Katrina is the standard by which future epic surge events will be measured against. The wind speed issue is another story. We need more data from the ground. That may come soon.......

[Audrey2Katrina]

I can see this being yet another incarnation of the 2 sides of this issue:

Ladies and Gentlemen: In this corner (fit the appropriate names here) those who are convinced that the 11th commandment is "Thou art the Northern Gulf, and Thou shalt NOT have any Category 5 Storms... thus it is written, thus let it be done!" ....
And in the opposing corner (fit the appropriate names here--really won't have to the responses will fill in all the blanks)... Those who are convinced that a Cat 5 can, and HAS struck the NGOM, and it goes by the name of Camille.

And the beat goes on.


A2K

[MWatkins]

Did you know...most of the state of the art aircraft, capable of penetrating Camille before landfall, was not available for this historic event.

Instead, they were flying missions into a system north of Puerto Rico as a part of Project Stormfury, the hurricane modification project?

Unfortunately, if our priorities were straight in the late 60's, instead of trying to control the weather, we would know more about this event. But instead of that, we will be forced to fill in the gaps from some very limited observations.

Given the same circumstances, if recon and SMRF were not available for Katrina, I would bet, at minimum it would be a cat 5 at the first landfall, and a cat 4 at the second.

MW

[mobilebay]

I can see this being yet another incarnation of the 2 sides of this issue:

Ladies and Gentlemen: In this corner (fit the appropriate names here) those who are convinced that the 11th commandment is "Thou art the Northern Gulf, and Thou shalt NOT have any Category 5 Storms... thus it is written, thus let it be done!" ....
And in the opposing corner (fit the appropriate names here--really won't have to the responses will fill in all the blanks)... Those who are convinced that a Cat 5 can, and HAS struck the NGOM, and it goes by the name of Camille.

And the beat goes on.


A2K

LOL! Why is every northern GOM cane down played on this board. IF the NHC said it was a 5, you can bet someone here says no way it was a 3. All I know is we keep getting pounded. Camille, Frederic, Elena, Georges, Ivan , Dennis, Katrina. However, if one hits south of Tampa it's a monster. Now they are picking on Georgia and the Carolinas and there odds of getting a 4 or 5. I guess the only people that have to worry about cat. 4 and 5 hurricanes are in South Florida .

[mobilebay]

Did you know...most of the state of the art aircraft, capable of penetrating Camille before landfall, was not available for this historic event.

Instead, they were flying missions into a system north of Puerto Rico as a part of Project Stormfury, the hurricane modification project?

Unfortunately, if our priorities were straight in the late 60's, instead of trying to control the weather, we would know more about this event. But instead of that, we will be forced to fill in the gaps from some very limited observations.

Given the same circumstances, if recon and SMRF were not available for Katrina, I would bet, at minimum it would be a cat 5 at the first landfall, and a cat 4 at the second.

MW

There is one met on this board that will be glad to fill in the blanks. He has wen't back in his time machine and discovered that every hurricane to strike the Northern Gom was two categories weaker than the NHC says.

[Derek Ortt]

they were flying north of PR when a major city (New Orleans) was under a hurricane warning? Pathetic

[rainstorm]

HURRICANE DEBBIE

[rainstorm]

debbie was in the very narrow area in the atlantic where seeding might take place

[cpdaman]

finally someone understanding they tried to control the weather 30 years ago and who's to say they didn't try to fly a storm into camile like they did debbie to weaken her at the last second. i was watching a audio clip of the pilot flying missions into a storm in the 60's actually beleive it may have been debbie

he says they made 5 different trips into the northeast quad. of storm to dump some solution cloud seeding to modify in this example weaken the storm, the pilot stated the storm ( i beleive it was debbie went from 115 to 85 mph after there 5 missions in the area of the northern caribean

now tell me could they have flew a plane into camile in the last hours to weaken her (which would have been easier to do on a storm her size) maybe they did

[brunota2003]

the only problem is the fact that what they were creating by seeding the hurricane already occurs in nature...the infamous Eyewall Replacement Cycle!!!

[cpdaman]

brunota 2003 says "the only problem is the fact that what they were creating by seeding the hurricane already occurs in nature...the infamous Eyewall Replacement Cycle!!!" ( i gotta learn how copy posts like others)


the only problem with that statement is u assume that because the eye wall replacement cycle TEMPORARILY weaken a storms maximum winds which is usually just a temporay break from further strengthening or at least maintianing overall strength . it is irrevelant to compare the two. cloud seeding is something that weakens a storms winds by disrupting the convection in the northeast quadrant ( much different) these effects can be TIMED due to flight schedules i.e before landfall or permanent if enough missions are carried out i.e debbie

many things like shear can weaken maximum winds, land, cool water these things can weaken storms PERMANENTLY i think u would agree all these things are different and more damaging to a storm's health than a natural eye wall replacement cycle which is just a temporary break from strengthening and often a sign of a healthy system.

[Pearl River]

New Orleans was placed under hurricane warnings at 9:00am on Sunday, August 17th. The 190mph winds in CAMILLE were not discovered until early afternoon when she was about 60 miles se of the mouth of the Mississippi. The rapid intensification occured just a few hours before landfall, that's why there is a great possibility CAMILLE was at cat5 at landfall. The reason there was not a later flight into the storm was the earlier aircraft had mechanical problems.

Apparently the Weather Bureau at that time thought Project Stormfury was more important.

[southerngale]

brunota 2003 says "the only problem is the fact that what they were creating by seeding the hurricane already occurs in nature...the infamous Eyewall Replacement Cycle!!!" ( i gotta learn how copy posts like others)

Just click the quote button in the top right corner of the post instead of clicking "Post Reply" and it will put the member's text inside the quotes for you. Then just reply after the [/quote] so your text doesn't appear within their quote.

[brunota2003]

brunota 2003 says "the only problem is the fact that what they were creating by seeding the hurricane already occurs in nature...the infamous Eyewall Replacement Cycle!!!" ( i gotta learn how copy posts like others)


the only problem with that statement is u assume that because the eye wall replacement cycle TEMPORARILY weaken a storms maximum winds which is usually just a temporay break from further strengthening or at least maintianing overall strength . it is irrevelant to compare the two. cloud seeding is something that weakens a storms winds by disrupting the convection in the northeast quadrant ( much different) these effects can be TIMED due to flight schedules i.e before landfall or permanent if enough missions are carried out i.e debbie

many things like shear can weaken maximum winds, land, cool water these things can weaken storms PERMANENTLY i think u would agree all these things are different and more damaging to a storm's health than a natural eye wall replacement cycle which is just a temporary break from strengthening and often a sign of a healthy system.

You quote by pressing the button in the top right corner of someones post that says "Quote" Now...about you saying the cloud seeding was not the forming of an ERC, but the disruption of the NE quad convection...straight from the NHC's FAQ page:

Subject: C5a) Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by seeding them with silver iodide:
Contributed by Chris Landsea

Actually for a couple decades NOAA and its predecessor tried to weaken hurricanes by dropping silver iodide - a substance that serves as a effective ice nuclei - into the rainbands of the storms. The STORMFURY project , as it was called, proposed that the silver iodide would enhance the thunderstorms of the rainband by causing the supercooled water to freeze, thus liberating the latent heat of fusion and helping the rainband to grow at the expense of the eyewall. With a weakened convergence to the eyewall, the strong inner core winds would also weaken quite a bit. Neat idea, but it, in the end, had a fatal flaw: there just isn't much supercooled water available in hurricane convection - the buoyancy is fairly small and the updrafts correspondingly small compared to the type one would observe in mid-latitude continental super or multicells. The few times that they did seed and saw a reduction in intensity was undoubtedly due to what is now called "concentric eyewall cycles".

Concentric eyewall cycles naturally occur in intense tropical cyclones (wind > 50 m/s [100 kt, 115 mph]). As tropical cyclones reach this threshold of intensity, they usually - but not always - have an eyewall and radius of maximum winds that contracts to a very small size, around 10 to 25 km [5 to 15 mi]. At this point, some of the outer rainbands may organize into an outer ring of thunderstorms that slowly moves inward and robs the inner eyewall of its needed moisture and momentum. During this phase, the tropical cyclone is weakening (i.e. the maximum winds die off a bit and the central pressure goes up). Eventually the outer eyewall replaces the inner one completely and the storm can be the same intensity as it was previously or, in some cases, even stronger. A concentric eyewall cycle occurred in Hurricane Andrew (1992) before landfall near Miami: a strong intensity was reached, an outer eyewall formed, this contracted in concert with a pronounced weakening of the storm, and as the outer eyewall completely replaced the original one the hurricane reintensified.

Thus nature accomplishes what NOAA had hoped to do artificially. No wonder that the first few experiments were thought to be successes. To learn about the STORMFURY project read Willoughby et al. (1985). To learn more about concentric eyewall cycles, read Willoughby et al. (1982) and Willoughby (1990).
Source: NHC FAQ Page Question C5 Answer A or this link: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5a.html

[AL Chili Pepper]

New Orleans was placed under hurricane warnings at 9:00am on Sunday, August 17th. The 190mph winds in CAMILLE were not discovered until early afternoon when she was about 60 miles se of the mouth of the Mississippi. The rapid intensification occured just a few hours before landfall, that's why there is a great possibility CAMILLE was at cat5 at landfall. The reason there was not a later flight into the storm was the earlier aircraft had mechanical problems.

Apparently the Weather Bureau at that time thought Project Stormfury was more important.

dsutherland posted a link to a radar image of Camille as she was making landfall. It showed one tightly wound and symmetric eyewall. I don't think any ERC or dry-air intrusion was taking place on August 18, 1969. That plus the 232 mph wind gust at Keesler makes me a great believer that Camille was a 5.

[vacanechaser]

I can see this being yet another incarnation of the 2 sides of this issue:

Ladies and Gentlemen: In this corner (fit the appropriate names here) those who are convinced that the 11th commandment is "Thou art the Northern Gulf, and Thou shalt NOT have any Category 5 Storms... thus it is written, thus let it be done!" ....
And in the opposing corner (fit the appropriate names here--really won't have to the responses will fill in all the blanks)... Those who are convinced that a Cat 5 can, and HAS struck the NGOM, and it goes by the name of Camille.

And the beat goes on.


A2K

LOL! Why is every northern GOM cane down played on this board. IF the NHC said it was a 5, you can bet someone here says no way it was a 3. All I know is we keep getting pounded. Camille, Frederic, Elena, Georges, Ivan , Dennis, Katrina. However, if one hits south of Tampa it's a monster. Now they are picking on Georgia and the Carolinas and there odds of getting a 4 or 5. I guess the only people that have to worry about cat. 4 and 5 hurricanes are in South Florida .

I don't think it is down played... However, Mark was making a good point here... I was not there for Katrina, but went back 40 days later.. The devastation caused by a "weaker" hurricane than Camille was unbelievable... How could something as strong as Camille was supposed to be do less in surge and destruction than Katrina?? Point is, after watching these monsters for years now, when one begins to make landfall along the north Gulf coast, the bottom seems to drop out... It appears that dry, continental air gets pulled into the center thus weakening it... Sudduth and Watkins certainly are not down playing anything here... But trying to bring up valid points that have been noted in our endevors..

Jesse V. Bass III
http://www.vastormphoto.com
Hurricane Intercept Research Team

[MiamiensisWx]

LOL! Why is every northern GOM cane down played on this board.

I'm sorry, but that is patently untrue. I understand your feelings, but that claim is just completely false. In case you haven't noticed, most of us would rather prefer not to see the carnage that took place on August 29, 2005, because of "Camille was 190MPH, and since most other storm weakened or were dodged bullets, I guess Katrina will do the same", or that "Camille's surge never exceeded the railroad tracks, so why should this weakening [Katrina] storm be any different?". I'm sorry, but that type of thinking is what killed countless people in Mississippi and elsewhere when Katrina arrived. I don't want to see it again, so what is so wrong with admitting the possibilty that Camille may have had lower sustained winds at landfall than originally thought? I understand your feelings, but this puzzles me, to say the least. Meanwhile, while you (and some others) complain about northern Gulf storms being so-called "downplayed", you (along with some others) willingly go out of your way to say that Andrew was not a Category Five at landfall by using the same claim to support your idea that Camille was a Category Five at landfall by saying that "no instruments during Andrew recorded anything close to Andrew's Category Four/Category Five winds". This same basis is also used to support that Camille was a Category Five at landfall by saying that "most instruments failed before the highest winds came". Excuse me, but if that is true for Camille, then why isn't it true for Andrew? Also, you often say that Camille's maximum sustained winds were in a VERY small area, just like Andrew, yet you say Camille was a Category Five at landfall but Andrew was not! I find this very flawed and somewhat arrogant, to say the least. If all the instruments failed before the highest sustained winds in Camille arrived, thus not recording the highest sustained winds, or were not located in the VERY SMALL area where the maximum sustained winds in Camille were, why would Andrew not be a Category Five at landfall? The same, if not more, was true with Andrew.

Sorry if this comes out in the wrong way, and I REALLY hate to offend Gulf coast residents (trust me, I do), but more suffering and avoidable because of using Camille (or ANY other storm) as the benchmark is INEXCUSABLE!

[hurricanetrack]

I think it is fairly safe to say that small hurricanes have a much better chance of making landfall in any given location as a cat-5 than do larger ones like Ivan or Katrina. However, I would not be surprised to see a large Floyd-like hurricane hit south Florida as a category five some day. History tells us that the really intense hurricanes to hit the U.S. were small. The Labor Day 1935 hurricane is a great example. Charley was small too and boy did it scare the heck out of our team while sat through that eyewall (coming and going).

I just think that the larger hurricanes have a much better chance of weakening before landfall than do the smaller intense hurricanes. However, we also have to watch out for rapidly deepening hurricanes, even large ones, right before landfall. That could cause big problems.

One final note regarding Katrina. I have passed through the entire landfall zone along the coast now and have noticed that the tree damage is no where near that which was caused by Hugo in SC in 1989. This really helps me to clearly see that the winds of Katrina were not of cat-4 intensity even down in the southern reaches of Louisiana. The tree damage would have been tremendous. But- and this is important, would the tress have had as much stress on them if they were under say 20 to 30 feet of water? There are so many mysteries still with hurricanes- I hope we can learn more with each landfall and each passing season. This is why I do what I do. You never know enough.

[Pearl River]

I've seen pictures of trees standing in areas that hurricane Charley hit at it's maximum. I don't believe you can compare damage from one area to another.

Another thing to realize is that the more trees in an area, the less you will see damaged due to wind breaks. If a house is surrounded by trees, you can't say because there is no roof damage, then the storm wasn't that strong.

Also, the coast was less populated in 1969 as compared to 2005. Again, try not to compare damage from 1969 to 2005. Camille also was a cat5 a lot less longer than Katrina and came in from the southeast compared to due south.

[Pearl River]

CVW wrote

mobilebay wrote:
LOL! Why is every northern GOM cane down played on this board.


I'm sorry, but that is patently untrue. I understand your feelings, but that claim is just completely false. In case you haven't noticed, most of us would rather prefer not to see the carnage that took place on August 29, 2005, because of "Camille was 190MPH, and since most other storm weakened or were dodged bullets, I guess Katrina will do the same", or that "Camille's surge never exceeded the railroad tracks, so why should this weakening [Katrina] storm be any different?". I'm sorry, but that type of thinking is what killed countless people in Mississippi and elsewhere when Katrina arrived. I don't want to see it again, so what is so wrong with admitting the possibilty that Camille may have had lower sustained winds at landfall than originally thought? I understand your feelings, but this puzzles me, to say the least. Meanwhile, while you (and some others) complain about northern Gulf storms being so-called "downplayed", you (along with some others) willingly go out of your way to say that Andrew was not a Category Five at landfall by using the same claim to support your idea that Camille was a Category Five at landfall by saying that "no instruments during Andrew recorded anything close to Andrew's Category Four/Category Five winds". This same basis is also used to support that Camille was a Category Five at landfall by saying that "most instruments failed before the highest winds came". Excuse me, but if that is true for Camille, then why isn't it true for Andrew? Also, you often say that Camille's maximum sustained winds were in a VERY small area, just like Andrew, yet you say Camille was a Category Five at landfall but Andrew was not! I find this very flawed and somewhat arrogant, to say the least. If all the instruments failed before the highest sustained winds in Camille arrived, thus not recording the highest sustained winds, or were not located in the VERY SMALL area where the maximum sustained winds in Camille were, why would Andrew not be a Category Five at landfall? The same, if not more, was true with Andrew.

Sorry if this comes out in the wrong way, and I REALLY hate to offend Gulf coast residents (trust me, I do), but more suffering and avoidable because of using Camille (or ANY other storm) as the benchmark is INEXCUSABLE!

I think you are missing A2K's point. Basically what he is stating is, Andrew can be classified a cat5 based on the similar criteria that others want to downgrade Camille on. Basically same size storm, Camille's pressure lower at landfall (2nd lowest on record at landfall), and no wind instrumentation actually catching the strongest winds at landfall in both storms.