Ivan question

[jes]

I'm in Mobile. Our local news tonight said that in West Mobile Ivan's max sustained winds were around 50 to 60 mph with gusts to 75mph. In Pensacola I saw the figure 112mph, but I was so amazed at the low wind speeds I can not remember if that was Pensacola's sustained or gusts. At any rate it is very low considering the damage. Then later they came on and said that Ivan had the second lowest B pressure next to Camille of all hurricanes to hit the Gulf coast. Frederick, Opal and all the rest had higher pressures. I know that many of the deaths were caused by the storm surge. But, I thought B pressure usually indicated higher wind speeds. Even North in Atmore and Brewton there was tremendous damage and that was not due to flooding. I guess my question is how can there be so much damage with such low wind speeds? Can the wind speeds really be so low with such a low B pressure? What really happened here. I am very confused.

[Anonymous]

Maybe because.... Ivan was actually a Cat 4/Strong Cat 3 like classified??? Who would have thunk it! (Comment directed to all those who continue to claim Ivan is a cat 2, not at you jes).

[PTPatrick]

I believe it was most definately a strong 3. The reason wind speeds dont reflect greater is that it is not out of the ordinary for the strongest winds to be right at the eyewall. Even in a large storm. I think most of the strongest winds were out of the range of the reliable measuring devives. In theory, given what I saw on radar, the worst of the eye wall stayed just west of Pensacola, on the state line and up through Brewton, Atmore, Monroeville, Cantonement. While Pensacola certainly did see category 3 gusts, it isnt surpising that their reporting stations did not measure much higher wind. i would like to see what they could have measured between Gulf Shores and Perdid Key.