What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

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Ianswfl
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What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#1 Postby Ianswfl » Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:19 pm

Some debate on the intensity at landfall. Last recon fixes would still suggest winds of at least 140mph and that wasn't on the strongest side as well. Pressure up 4mb compared to the morning of 936 peak intensity.

Port Charlotte on the weak side had a 115mph sustained winds reported.

Here in Punta Gorda the winds seemed about 125 to me.

On Sanibel some of the 3 story condos and houses and catastrophic wall and roof failure with trusses showing as well.

Reed Timmers footage in the eastern eyewall also looked strong.

After first landfall is when the eastern side really weakened.

I'm going 145mph first landfall and 130 second landfall.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#2 Postby Category5Kaiju » Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:46 pm

Personally, I think 150/940 seems quite reasonable. The damage alone is suggestive of a high-end Cat 4 hurricane rather than mid-grade Cat 4 in my honest opinion.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#3 Postby ncforecaster89 » Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:32 am

I won’t be surprised if the NHC retains the operational MSW of 130 kt/150 mph for the initial landfall, but it was likely closer to 125 kt/145 mph when the eye crossed the shoreline.

In regards to the second landfall, just S of Punta Gorda, I expect that the MSW will be reduced to 115 or 120 kt (130-140 mph). I’d go with 115 kt, personally…as it was certainly filling gradually even before the initial landfall occurred.

I too was in PG for Ian. The strongest winds occurred in the SW eyewall after the eye passed through the town. It had weakened further by that time, but still produced very impressive wind gusts!

On a side note, I intercepted the center of the eye at 439 pm S of PG where I recorded a lowest barometric pressure of 944.6 mb.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#4 Postby JetFuel_SE » Sat Mar 25, 2023 4:03 am

130kt landfall, 140kt peak.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#5 Postby wxman57 » Sat Mar 25, 2023 9:11 am

Does it really matter if it was 125kts or 130 kts? Peak sustained winds, which may only occur over a very small area, will not be representative of the damage potential of a storm. Consider Ivan and Dennis, same intensity at landfall. Ivan had hurricane force wind covering a much larger area. Peak intensity was not significant.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#6 Postby Ianswfl » Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:36 pm

wxman57 wrote:Does it really matter if it was 125kts or 130 kts? Peak sustained winds, which may only occur over a very small area, will not be representative of the damage potential of a storm. Consider Ivan and Dennis, same intensity at landfall. Ivan had hurricane force wind covering a much larger area. Peak intensity was not significant.


What's your personal opinion of the max sustained winds at landfall?
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#7 Postby wxman57 » Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:43 am

Ianswfl wrote:
wxman57 wrote:Does it really matter if it was 125kts or 130 kts? Peak sustained winds, which may only occur over a very small area, will not be representative of the damage potential of a storm. Consider Ivan and Dennis, same intensity at landfall. Ivan had hurricane force wind covering a much larger area. Peak intensity was not significant.


What's your personal opinion of the max sustained winds at landfall?


I really don't remember, and I really don't care. Peak sustained wind doesn't mean much.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#8 Postby ncforecaster89 » Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:09 pm

wxman57 wrote:
Ianswfl wrote:
wxman57 wrote:Does it really matter if it was 125kts or 130 kts? Peak sustained winds, which may only occur over a very small area, will not be representative of the damage potential of a storm. Consider Ivan and Dennis, same intensity at landfall. Ivan had hurricane force wind covering a much larger area. Peak intensity was not significant.


What's your personal opinion of the max sustained winds at landfall?


I really don't remember, and I really don't care. Peak sustained wind doesn't mean much.


I respect the point you’re making and agree with the main premise. I’ll simply add that it’s relevant for the purpose of scientific accuracy…in so much as that’s possible. Especially considering a difference between 125 kt advisory wind speeds for the second landfall and the likelihood it was substantially weaker at that point…so those who experienced those winds are able to better understand what they encountered.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#9 Postby tolakram » Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:20 am

I would carefully suggest that scientific accuracy has less to do with it than scorekeeping. There's so many random things that can happen in a storm, and as an amateur I fail to see what's so important about exact speeds and man made thresholds.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#10 Postby wxman57 » Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:57 am

ncforecaster89 wrote:
wxman57 wrote:
Ianswfl wrote:
What's your personal opinion of the max sustained winds at landfall?


I really don't remember, and I really don't care. Peak sustained wind doesn't mean much.


I respect the point you’re making and agree with the main premise. I’ll simply add that it’s relevant for the purpose of scientific accuracy…in so much as that’s possible. Especially considering a difference between 125 kt advisory wind speeds for the second landfall and the likelihood it was substantially weaker at that point…so those who experienced those winds are able to better understand what they encountered.


A storm's intensity, when considering only its max sustained 1-minute wind, is highly variable, both with time and location within the circulation. We only have the capability to measure a small part of the wind field and only over a brief period. Transient cells, with their higher winds, are rotating around the circulation. Maybe a recon plane can sample the cells, but probably most are missed. An average wind over a large area for a longer time would be a better gauge than any spot, transient, peak wind. A 10 minute wind would be a better measurement, but we cannot even measure 1-minute winds. We can only infer 1-minute winds from very brief measurements, due to a moving plane and falling instruments.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#11 Postby ncforecaster89 » Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:53 pm

tolakram wrote:I would carefully suggest that scientific accuracy has less to do with it than scorekeeping. There's so many random things that can happen in a storm, and as an amateur I fail to see what's so important about exact speeds and man made thresholds.


Honestly, I can appreciate this perspective as well as that of the original poster who created the thread.

Think it’s understandable for one to be interested in the peak strength of the winds they may have experienced. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of the general public, they likely don’t understand the numerous factors that influence the wind speeds encountered at one specific point/locality.

Obviously, the MSW is just one aspect of the many devastating effects that a given hurricane can impart on a particular area.

In short, I don’t disagree with anything you or wxman57 stated in your respective posts.
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Re: What are your thoughts on Ian's landfall intensity?

#12 Postby Ianswfl » Wed Mar 29, 2023 11:49 pm

There is VERY few videos of the eyewall from the islands such as Pine Island and Sanibel, Captiva, Boca Grande. However Reed Timmer's Pine Island and the Severe Studios cams showed very intense winds on the eastern eyewall. 3 hour 30 min mark the Sanibel camera on the water starts to shows violent winds, looks almost Charley like and the camera goes out 40 mins later. As I said before, this explains the extreme 3rd floor damage to buildings on Sanibel not due to surge on the buildings facing the Gulf. I stand by 145mph first landfall but it makes sense with the land interaction the eastern eyewall was weaker at my location.

We had no chasers on Sanibel so we don't have super clear video. If we had, I think it would have looked similar to hurricane Charley. But looking at this stream at the peak it's easy to see it was violent. I was personally shocked at peak wind how Ft. Myers beach also had very intense winds. I figured they got maybe low end cat3 winds only, but the peak looks more like strong cat3.

I can't find surgecam5 alone anywhere. It would be nicer to see a full screen version of the footage rather than the small caption window used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2aticerEcs
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