wxman57 wrote:boca_chris wrote:wxman57 wrote:I seriously doubt Alberto had any 70 mph sustained wind. Recon was flying without SFMR (per Derek). With a core as tilted as Alberto's due to shear, it was very difficult to drop dropsondes in the max wind area. Recon was using a 0.9 FL to surface conversion, which was likely way too high given the dry air entrainment and hybrid low status. Plenty of buoys and ships in its path, and the maximum I saw reported from a buoy was 40 kts. One ship reported a 50 kt wind, but that ship was reporting consistently a good 10 kts higher than other observations around it. They may not have been adjusting for ship movement properly.
Bottom line, there's no data to support hurricane strength. With Cindy, there were actually a few (or one) surface report of 74 mph wind plus other measurements that indicated 74 mph at the surface. Not so with Alberto.
maybe they should downgrade it to max winds of 40mph...when it came ashore the effects were very minimal as far as wind - there is no way it was even a strong TS...
No, not 40 mph. There were several reliable buoys in it's path reporting 40kt winds, and it's possible there were a few pockets of 45 or 50kt winds. But 60kt winds is probably an exaggeration based solely upon a 90% FL to surface wind conversion.
They used a 0.8 conversion at the boundary layer.
74kts * 0.8 = 59.2kts surface
