REMEMBER GREAT HURRICANE OF SEPTEMBER 1928

[HUC]

Remember : People in Guadeloupe,Montserrat and the adjacsants islands ,Puerto Rico,Bahamas,Florida,... 84 years ago,a terriofc hurricane caused thousands of death and misery in some of our countries.
For Guadeloupe it is at the present time, the most intense and devastating hurricane we ever known at least since the XIXe century.
A thought to all the victims of this desaster.

[MiamiensisWx]

Some astounding data for this storm are as follows:

1. The U.S. Weather Bureau office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, recorded sustained winds of 139 kt (160 mph) on September 13...the day of the feast of San Felipe...at 1544Z, more than two hours before the eye passed about 20 miles south of that location. The anemometer then was the new three-cup, rather than the less reliable four-cup, model, so its wind reading was deemed accurate...showing sustained winds of Category 5 intensity while the eye was still 50 miles southeast of Arroyo, Puerto Rico, the approximate landfall location. Because the reading occurred before peak winds arrived...and because the anemometer was disabled after the peak measurement...sustained winds were believed to have been near 175 kt (200 mph) in the northern eye wall at San Juan. (Of course, the reading itself, being so far removed from the peak winds, may have instead been a transient mesoscale phenomenon.)

2. The interior of Puerto Rico received more than 29 inches of rainfall near Adjuntas...the highest measured total, as gages overflowed due to the rains and winds. Actual 24-hour rainfall on the island was likely greater than 30 inches at some locales. The flooding and associated mudslides probably caused many undocumented deaths in villages, so the official death toll of 312 lives on the island was probably higher...as some people suspected at the time. The death toll was not the highest in the history of the island, as the August 1899 Huracán San Ciriaco claimed more than 3,000 lives on the island, even though the 1928 hurricane was stronger (140 kt/160 mph...with a central pressure probably below 931 mb...compared to 120 kt/140 mph in the 1899 hurricane...during which Guayana recorded a central pressure of 940 mb).

3. The outer closed isobar of the storm--the outer edge of its wind circulation--was more than 240 miles from the center as it approached the east coast of South Florida on September 16, 1928. At landfall, hurricane-force winds were reported from Fort Lauderdale to north of Fort Pierce...meaning such winds extended more than 85 miles in all directions from the center. (The September 1926 hurricane at Miami was even larger: the outer closed isobar extended 260+ miles from the center, and hurricane-force winds occurred from the Key Largo area to approximately Fort Pierce--about 105 miles in all directions from the center.) Keep in mind that the 1928 and 1926 hurricanes were both strong Category-4 hurricanes...125-130 kt (145-150 mph) and at or below 930 mb...at landfall in South Florida, and the eye of each was at least 20-25 miles in diameter. (The intensity of the 1928 hurricane may have actually been a bit weaker than in the 1926 hurricane...as the wind damage to trees and well-built structures was reportedly not as severe, even in the northern eye wall...and as other barometers in West Palm Beach reported 934-935 mb, rather than the official 929 mb, in the eye.)

4. As in Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe suffered incredible wind damage. Reportedly, the only building left standing in Pointe-á-Pitre, Guadeloupe, a city of 6,000 or more people, was a concrete, steel-reinforced police station. The city was described as resembling a dynamited area. Large pieces of iron, weighing more than 250 pounds, were thrown by the wind 50+ yards (150+ feet/46+ meters) from a factory. Many other heavy pieces of metal and iron were transported for long distances. Practically every plantation was destroyed or severely damaged. At a private home, not only was the galvanized-iron roof torn off, but also the partition between offices...as the wind shredded the entire building, causing damage seen in a strong EF2 or low-end EF3 tornado, as seen at Lubbock, Texas, during an F5 tornado on May 9, 1970. The winds were so intense and the damage so acute that some people believed an earthquake struck the island, though no evidence of such an event was clear. Winds during the storm were officially reanalyzed at 120 kt/140 mph on Guadeloupe...but officials at the time suggested near-Category-5 winds of 130 kt/150 mph or greater (likely gusts, possibly as high as the 154-kt/177-mph gust recorded at Perrine, Florida, during Andrew 1992).

5. At Jupiter, Florida, the northern eye wall of the storm crossed the coast...causing the worst damage in a zone from Lake Park to Jupiter and ending at Gomez, just north of Hobe Sound, where nearly every building suffered severe, widespread roof damage or was destroyed. At Jupiter Inlet, the U.S. Naval radio station at about 22Z on September 16 reported winds of 80 kt/90 mph and a storm tide of five feet...shortly before the strongest winds arrived and destroyed the facility. The Jupiter Lighthouse itself briefly lost power for the first time since the Civil War (1862 or so)...as a strong wind gust actually caused the mortar to be squeezed between the bricks, supposedly swaying the tower nearly two feet off-center. The storm tide on the Loxahatchee River was close to 10 feet and destroyed some bridges more than two miles inland...as well as a farm even farther from the immediate coastline. The entire riverfront area and part of present-day Jonathan Dickinson State Park was flooded during the hurricane.

[CrazyC83]

The 1928 storm in Puerto Rico was fairly similar to Gustav in Cuba, in that it overproduced with the winds as opposed to its pressure and size (indeed, that 140 kt reading was deemed legitimate and it kept Cat 5 status at PR landfall despite the 931mb pressure). It is rare, but it does happen that a surface observation can catch the right spot.