Ike a Cat-3 at landfall in Texas?

[MGC]

Today, I had the pleasure of talking with a Met who works for WeatherFlow. WeatherFlow is in the process of installing a tower on the beach in Gulfport ,located just west of the Island View Casino. Being a weather geek, I could help but stop and talk with the two guys installing the instruments. One of the guys is a met and we talked about hurricanes. He told me that they have an array of instruments in the Galveston area that provided excellent data on Ike. He said that only one tower was in the RFQ of Ike. The towers are the official 10 meters and all have battery backups and data loggers to provide continous data acquistion. Data is downloaded via cell phone link. Anyway, he said that the tower in the RFQ reported sustained winds of 111mph during Ike. This if true and I don't see any reason for him to lie, would make Ike a minimal Cat-3 at landfall......MGC

http://WWW.WEATHERFLOW.COM

[CrazyC83]

It seems to say 111 mph gusts...but that is probably also an incomplete estimate. However, flight-level winds were 109 kt a few hours before landfall (that would support a 100 kt intensity) and I don't see why it didn't hold up until landfall.

[wxman57]

Yes, the site does say the 111 mph was a gust. I have a wind plot from Channel 39's anemometer with readings every 10 minutes through the outer western eyewall. Peak winds were 69 mph sustained with gusts to 112 mph. Ike was a Cat 2 at landfall. Post-storm wind analysis by the HRD indicates Ike's winds were lower than given on the advisory, maybe closer to 100 mph at landfall. There's nothing to indicate Ike was a Cat 3. I was in Ike's western eyewall for quite a few hours that Friday night. Barely saw low-end hurricane force winds in a few bursts between 4am-6am, and the western side was intensifying as it moved ashore.

[jinftl]

Interesting graphic from Hurricane Research Division....max 1-minute sustained winds in kts......peak they estimated was 89 kts, or about 102 mph...located 37 nautical miles ne of eye....interesting to see how worst winds were a bit to the east of the eye. Areas shaded yellow saw sustained cat 1 winds of about 75mph...orange, red, and pink saw higher (although very small area of sustained cat 2 winds on the coast.)

[hurricanetrack]

Well, it is hard for me to understand how the eye could come right over Galveston AND they be in the RFQ. That does not make any sense. The RFQ was farther up the coast where apparently no instruments were. In any case, FWIW, we had a 5 meter tower in Galveston in a nice open area at Galveston College and all we were able to record were winds gusting in to the 70s. Here is our chart:

http://www.hurricanetrack.com/watkins/ike_wind.jpg

As for the radar of Ike and its RFQ- here it is:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/projects/ik ... keLong.gif

And, as an added footnote, I was on the 11th floor of the San Luis hotel with Mike Watkins during the passage of both eye walls. While winds were certainly strong and in fact caused great anxiety for Mike and I, it is hard for me to believe that even at 110 feet above sea level that winds were over 100 mph sustained. Our vehicle mounted anemometer recorded a peak gust of 73 at 9 feet above ground level in the parking lot of the San Luis. We just did not see any solid evidence of cat-3 wind damage and we did tour most of Galveston for 48 hours after Ike.

What we did see was enormous storm surge damage. But that, we all know about.

Lastly, as I am now writing more than I intended, Josh Wurman had his DOW truck on site with quite a few instruments deployed as well. I will aks him if his team or his DOW saw surface winds in excess of 100 mph sustained. Ike was strong, but not likely a category three wind-wise. It was trying though, that eye was shrinking and getting better organized in the hours before landfall. Good thing it ran out of time.

[Derek Ortt]

the fact that the eye was shrinking was good news for Texas. It meant that the wind coverage was lower. In fatc, the IKE decreased by about half in the hours before landfall. This spared the area from the expected 25 foot surge (though they still did get 20 in locations)

[CrazyC83]

Looking at the graphic and the 111 mph gust, they don't match up to the maximum area. In fact, the area that the reading occured was shown to have barely had hurricane winds (offshore) on that map. If those are correct, it can be assumed that winds were about 30 mph stronger over the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge.

Also a shrinking eye means a strengthening storm usually?

[margiek]

Lastly, as I am now writing more than I intended, Josh Wurman had his DOW truck on site with quite a few instruments deployed as well. I will aks him if his team or his DOW saw surface winds in excess of 100 mph sustained. Ike was strong, but not likely a category three wind-wise. It was trying though, that eye was shrinking and getting better organized in the hours before landfall. Good thing it ran out of time.

Josh has some info online:

http://www.cswr.org/ike-maps-2008-0916bp.pdf

[MGC]

The Met that I talked with said his company had about 6 sites with instruments in the Houston/Galveston area at the time of Ike. Five of them are mounted on cell towers and were on the weak side of Ike. The other site that allegedly recorded the sustained 111mph wind was on a free standing tower up the Bolivar Peninsula from Galveston. I specifically asked him if he meant gust or sustained and he responded sustained. Too bad these towers were not in place for Katrina. I also commented that the 10 meter tower that is in Gulfport would not have survived Katrina as it would have likely been underwater during Katrina. A swell on top of the surge would have destroyed it. He also said the project was being funded by a organization that represents insurance companies. I guess they got burned on the wind vrs surge argument in Katrina and want proof of the wind speeds.....MGC

[MGC]

I was also under the impression that a shrinking eye that contains mesovorticies was an indication of a strengthening system. Also, the doppler estimated winds using the standard reduction factor and all well and good, but what if Ike had a atypical wind eyewall profile? Perhaps winds were being transported to the surface at a slightly higher efficiency? What then? Perhaps the winds were slightly stonger than Cat-2.......MGC

[Ptarmigan]

I remember reading in an advistory before Ike made landfall that it had flight level winds of 135 mph.

[Jason Foster]

While I had no actual wind measuring equipment during my intercept of Hurricane Ike in Galveston, TX I can certainly see (from my personal experience) that the storm could have just eeked into the Category 3 status, but not by too much.

At one point in, Chris Collura and I drove to the I-45 bridge just outside Galveston, were we personally sampled the winds near the peak of the bridge. I would estimate that at 300 feet (or whatever height that bridge is over the water), we were struggling to stand up, which in the past, means sustained winds of around 85mph and gusts up to 100mph. I'm on the slender side, so I really had a hard time, and even the car was bouncing around a lot, and I thought the rear bumper might come off from all the violent turbulence. This was well before the eye wall approached, as it was still day light, and many of the roads in Galveston were still accessible. I'd have to review the video to get the exact time.

Interestingly to me however, was that the winds did not seem to increase significantly during the eyewall. When Chris and myself found our safe spot near the large Texas Hospital toward the north end of the island, we noted that only a slight increase in wind over the one to two hour time before the eye made landfall over us. We were more dead center to maybe more west of the eye, so I can certainly see the winds being over 111mph. However, I can also see that not being the case because the eyewall didn't intensify as much as I have experience in previous hurricane intercepts.

[jinftl]

There is a huge difference between gusts to hurricane force and sustained winds of hurricane force. Any area that saw even sustained Cat 1 conditions clearly bears the scars of what that can do. Winds don't need to reach sustained Cat 3 levels before it is impossible to stand up or be outside...it would not be possible to be outside even for an instance with those type of winds....regardless of weight.

Outside of the surge damage zone, there is clearly no evidence of anything close to sustained Cat 3 winds. Sustained ts and cat 1 winds were the majority of reports....if there was any areas that had sustained cat 2 winds...or even cat 3 winds...they would have had to have been very isolated and on the immediate coast...but i have not seen any official readings to confirm that (Cat 3). For an idea of what major hurricane force winds (sustained) look like, some of the Charley videos on youtube show what that it is like....standing outside is not an option..visibility is a few feet as a steady stream of shards of metal and debris ricochet off of anything in its path. You will never ever see, for example, a tv news reporter 'live' on the beach in the eyewall of a Charley-type storm....yet at the peak of Ike, newsreporters were on the seawall in Galvestion.

But I can't stress enough....the impact of even sustained cat 1 winds can not be underestimated...there is no truth at all to the belief that winds must be cat 3 or higher to do alot of harm....if you had sustained cat 1 winds, you have been through an extreme weather experience that was no doubt scary and damaging.

[CrazyC83]

If there were Cat 3 sustained winds, they would have been contained to the beaches in the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. Even Cat 2 sustained winds were likely limited to eastern Chambers County and southwestern Jefferson County, and possibly the immediate coast in Surfside Beach (on the west side). Most of the Houston area probably hade Cat 1 sustained winds (some areas maybe not even that).

[jinftl]

Very interesting analysis from NOAA and NWS Houston....cites the longevity of the winds as the source of most damage...


Hurricane Ike Wind Analysis for Southeast Texas
NOAA/NWS Houston/Galveston
Updated - 5 October 2008

Ike's Wind Swath
Hurricane Ike had a large wind field covering a broad area of southeast Texas. Tropical storm force winds extended from Palacios, TX to east of Lake Charles, LA. Tropical storm force winds moved inland as far north as Longview, TX. Hurricane force winds were felt mainly from along the coast of Freeport, TX to Sabine Pass, TX including Beaumont, TX. Hurricane force winds extended inland to include the Houston metro area and as far north as Livingston, TX and even Lufkin, TX. The Harris County Appraisal District was able to overaly the wind swath in MPH over a county map to give a better idea of the wind field distribution. While the wind swath map provides a good understanding of how strong the winds were as Ike moved across southeast Texas, it lacks the ability to provide any information about the structure of Ike and the longevity of the winds.

Even though winds approached 80 knots (95 mph) in some areas as Ike move inland, hurricane force winds persisted for a long time as well. Bush Intercontinental Airport reported tropical storm force winds beginning at midnight on Saturday 13 September and ended when the observation failed at 5AM CDT. These winds most likely persisted longer than 5 hours as the southern eye wall of Ike had yet to pass through the area as seen by radar. According to HRD wind analyses from 0430 UTC 13 September (1130PM CDT, 12 September) through 1330 UTC 13 September, it is possible that tropical storm force winds affected most of southeast Texas for as much as 9 hours or longer. Hurricane force winds east of the eye of Ike could have affected portions of east Texas just as long.

Wind Analysis Compared to Doppler Velocities
The analysis at this time indicates maximum winds of 85 knots or 98 mph which is the low end of Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. This wind maximum was located mainly on the east side of the hurricane.

While the wind speeds may be at a Category 1 level on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, these winds persisted for a several hours which would contribute to more extensive wind damage across the region than if Ike was moving faster or had a smaller wind field.

This further illustrates that in this case it was not so much the intensity of the winds, but the longevity of the winds which contribute to extensive wind damage across southeast Texas.

Conclusions
The focus of this study was to investigate intensity of the wind fields as Hurricane Ike moved inland. The NHC with its recon data had maximum sustained winds of 95 knots (110 mph) as Ike made landfall. These kinds of winds were certainly possible, but given the HRD wind analyses and velocity data from the NWS Houston/Galveston radar, sustained winds of 80 to 85 knots (90-100 mph) were more likely across southeast Texas.

The wind analyses and velocity data also showed that Hurricane Ike was structured such that the southern half of the hurricane had more intense winds than the northern half. The strongest winds were still in the northeast quadrant which is very typical for a northward moving hurricane. The wind analyses also gave a good estimate of the longevity of the tropical storm and hurricane force winds. These winds persisted for at least 9 hours for most areas near the center of the hurricane. This was mainly due to the fact that Hurricane Ike had a large circulation center and an expansive wind field well east of the storm.

More than likely, it was the longevity of the winds that contributed to the extensive damage across southeast Texas, more so than the intensity of the winds.

[hurricanetrack]

I think what Derek is alluding to is the fact that the eye contracting helped to also contract the surge to some extent. In other words, the RMW was not as large and so not as much water had the maximum winds acting on it. Made little difference along the Bolivar but a HUGE difference for Galveston Island. I am of the opinion, based solely on being there and seeing/documenting first hand, that had there been a 25 foot surge on Galveston that we would have seen the Gulf and Bay meet with considerable damage and loss of life due to surge. There were places along the sea wall where the Gulf did in fact overtop and flood inland a block or two. One such place is near 14th street and Ave N 1/2 where we had a remote cam set up. Even though it was dark when the worst came in, when Mike and I went to retrieve the camera the next day, there was surge damage to a building across from the sea wall- on the north side of the blvd. Waves had to have come in and broken up some of the concrete of this shop that is on the corner of 14th and N 1/2. Standing water did not do it- there were ocean waves. And, just looking at the wreckage from Hooters that was piled up against the north side of Seawall Blvd, you would have to assume that the Gulf overtopped there too and pushed all that debris northward, leaving it piled up in a heap along the blvd. Galveston was hit hard, no doubt, but it could have been very bad with a little more surge height. I hope that Ike does not set a precedent like Camille did. That in the future we do not hear "well, my house/business/etc. survived Ike so I am staying for so and so".

I assume that if you bring Carla to make landfall at San Luis Pass that Galveston would be quite rolled up. So we know it can happen- it's just a matter of when it will happen again.

[jinftl]

An unfortunate trait people in all storm paths seem to take - underestimate the effect the storm could have before it hits, and overestimate it after. The overestimation then feeds the underestimation of future storms.

I think what Derek is alluding to is the fact that the eye contracting helped to also contract the surge to some extent. In other words, the RMW was not as large and so not as much water had the maximum winds acting on it. Made little difference along the Bolivar but a HUGE difference for Galveston Island. I am of the opinion, based solely on being there and seeing/documenting first hand, that had there been a 25 foot surge on Galveston that we would have seen the Gulf and Bay meet with considerable damage and loss of life due to surge. There were places along the sea wall where the Gulf did in fact overtop and flood inland a block or two. One such place is near 14th street and Ave N 1/2 where we had a remote cam set up. Even though it was dark when the worst came in, when Mike and I went to retrieve the camera the next day, there was surge damage to a building across from the sea wall- on the north side of the blvd. Waves had to have come in and broken up some of the concrete of this shop that is on the corner of 14th and N 1/2. Standing water did not do it- there were ocean waves. And, just looking at the wreckage from Hooters that was piled up against the north side of Seawall Blvd, you would have to assume that the Gulf overtopped there too and pushed all that debris northward, leaving it piled up in a heap along the blvd. Galveston was hit hard, no doubt, but it could have been very bad with a little more surge height. I hope that Ike does not set a precedent like Camille did. That in the future we do not hear "well, my house/business/etc. survived Ike so I am staying for so and so".

I assume that if you bring Carla to make landfall at San Luis Pass that Galveston would be quite rolled up. So we know it can happen- it's just a matter of when it will happen again.

[Derek Ortt]

I am not sure Galveston would have had 25 feet had Ike not contracted before landfall. maybe 15 instead of 12. Wher ethe surge would have been MUCH higher though would have been the Beaumont/Port Arthur area. They could have seen 20 instead of the 12 that they received

[Jason Foster]

Winds don't need to reach sustained Cat 3 levels before it is impossible to stand up or be outside...it would not be possible to be outside even for an instance with those type of winds....regardless of weight.....

......For an idea of what major hurricane force winds (sustained) look like, some of the Charley videos on youtube show what that it is like....standing outside is not an option..visibility is a few feet as a steady stream of shards of metal and debris ricochet off of anything in its path. You will never ever see, for example, a tv news reporter 'live' on the beach in the eyewall of a Charley-type storm....yet at the peak of Ike, newsreporters were on the seawall in Galvestion.

But I can't stress enough....the impact of even sustained cat 1 winds can not be underestimated...there is no truth at all to the belief that winds must be cat 3 or higher to do alot of harm....if you had sustained cat 1 winds, you have been through an extreme weather experience that was no doubt scary and damaging.

Yes...those videos on Youtube are illegal copies of one of the documentary DVDs I helped produce. I was one of the one's filming that event, so I'm quite familiar with that event.

The actual speed from my observations that a person can withstand standing up in hurricane like winds is about 100mph. It doesn't matter too much on weight, but I, being slender top out at around 94mph sustained. But remember gusts in hurricanes come every few seconds, and big blasts every couple of minutes. There is no "sustained" winds really, very turbulent. I had no problem standing in winds between 75mph to 85mph winds (measured).

It is true that even a Cat.1 storm can do damage, but there are so many factors like building quality, duration, etc. that dictate the level of damage, not just a hurricane rating speed. In many cases, I've found winds much higher in the hurricane, but likely were a result of wind foiling around a building or other structure. I certainly saw winds that were higher than 110mph sustained when funneled between a building, but again, it wasn't measured (but is in Jim Edds/Jeff Piotrowski/Chris Collura Hurricane DVD about Ike).

[Jason Foster]

....There were places along the sea wall where the Gulf did in fact overtop and flood inland a block or two. One such place is near 14th street and Ave N 1/2 where we had a remote cam set up. Even though it was dark when the worst came in, when Mike and I went to retrieve the camera the next day, there was surge damage to a building across from the sea wall- on the north side of the blvd. Waves had to have come in and broken up some of the concrete of this shop that is on the corner of 14th and N 1/2. Standing water did not do it- there were ocean waves. And, just looking at the wreckage from Hooters that was piled up against the north side of Seawall Blvd, you would have to assume that the Gulf overtopped there too and pushed all that debris northward, leaving it piled up in a heap along the blvd.

Mark, yes, that was one of the spots I wondered about the next morning as we drove by. But, I was surprised by the spot near the LaQuinter further southwest on the island were the parking lot concrete was suspended in mid-air holding on only by the reinforcement steel, and in scoured out the sand underneath down 15-20 feet or more. There had to be very fast water flow to remove that amount of sand and soil.