Favorite Ian eyewall clips

[Ianswfl]

So, what are your favorite clips from Ian? I live in Punta Gorda and Michael Laca's is my favorite. His second half of the storm is pretty much low end cat4 winds I think.

I am very disappointed no eyewall footage from Sanibel, Captiva really. WINK had a crew on Sanibel but they didn't record any of the eyewall. Jock Williams was on Boca Grande and some of his clips look about 145mph, a little weaker than Charley.

Some of the damage on Sanibel to 3 story condos, hotels looks like a 150mph storm. Trusses showing, complete wall failures.

Reed Timmer's eye footage on the eastern eyewall also looked about cat4 too. It was when the storm made first landfall that eastern eyewall became weaker due to land.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xIYijouHlw

[Category5Kaiju]

Check out icyclone (Josh Morgerman)’s Ian chase. The emperor of hurricane hunters was even caught off guard by how powerful the western eyewall was compared to the eastern eyewall.

[Ianswfl]

Check out icyclone (Josh Morgerman)’s Ian chase. The emperor of hurricane hunters was even caught off guard by how powerful the western eyewall was compared to the eastern eyewall.

The peak winds around him looked about 125mph with gusts to 150mph. I live in Punta Gorda near the airport. The first half had a gust to 135mph and the sensor failed. I estimate 150mph gusts in the second half sustained around 125. Port Charlotte had higher winds especially the northern part. By the mall a gas station got shredded Charley style and an office building had a lot of it's windows blown out. Extreme northern Charlotte County and parts of southern north Port got the strongest winds on the mainland outside of Englewood. When you turn down state road 776, aka El Jobean from US 41 you can still see all the pine trees bending from the wind. Power poles all tilted. When you go on I75 there is a narrow stretch in North Port where there are a number of Pine trees snapped in 90 degree angles like Michael did.

Boca Grande is all millionaires. Those houses are built like bunkers. However there was severe wind damage to trees.

If those homes on Boca were built like the ones crappy ones like Ft. Myers Beach was they would have been shredded up like Charley. The winds were very intense on Boca if you watch Jock Williams. He claims to have recorded 168mph wind gusts and he sent them to NHC but they never used his report.

A private weather station recorded 115mph before the stronger part in Port Charlotte.

Notice Wilma was similar too! had this large eye and Wilma the winds on the east side were underwhelming compared to the western side. Similar set up. Something with large eyes and cold fronts picking them up and the western side becomes stronger.

[Ianswfl]

This is from the first half, Placida, Englewood area. Looks to be about 130mph at the peak in this video. Second half stronger then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMQ-nTTv4ik

This is also another good video too. His estimates look pretty good! 430pm that's solid cat4 conditions! Has the vibrating roar to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC54kg6nODE

[Ianswfl]

Took a drive out to Sanibel today. I was amazed how fast it has comeback. What I find interesting is there is more visible wind damage before you get on the causeway and over the mainland area compared to the island side! An observation I have is that all the short trees and abundance of them seemed to have act as a buffer protecting the structures from the highest winds. Now the Gulf side facing buildings you recall the third stories of condos and hotels had catastrophic wind damage to many of them. The buildings on the gulf facing the water have no buffer from the cat4 winds.

I really think the trees helped shield the smaller structures. On the more open parts of the island there is severe tree damage due to more exposure to the wind.

Tomorrow I will go to Ft. Myers beach. the wind damage there seems worse. I also don't think Sanibel got the strongest winds. Boca Grande seemed to have stronger winds. Much more severe tree and shrub damage there.

This is cat4 type damage but these are on the water. This didn't occur where you had a lot of trees blocking houses protecting them somewhat.

[Bocadude85]

This is from the first half, Placida, Englewood area. Looks to be about 130mph at the peak in this video. Second half stronger then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMQ-nTTv4ik

This is also another good video too. His estimates look pretty good! 430pm that's solid cat4 conditions! Has the vibrating roar to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC54kg6nODE

Neither one of those videos you posted look like sustained cat 4 winds, maybe some gusts approaching cat 4 but for the most part both videos appear to show sustained winds in the cat 2 to low end cat 3 range. If you want to see what true sustained cat 4 winds look like then checkout Hurricane Irma videos from the Caribbean or Hurricane Dorian videos from Abaco.

[Ianswfl]

This is from the first half, Placida, Englewood area. Looks to be about 130mph at the peak in this video. Second half stronger then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMQ-nTTv4ik

This is also another good video too. His estimates look pretty good! 430pm that's solid cat4 conditions! Has the vibrating roar to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC54kg6nODE

Neither one of those videos you posted look like sustained cat 4 winds, maybe some gusts approaching cat 4 but for the most part both videos appear to show sustained winds in the cat 2 to low end cat 3 range. If you want to see what true sustained cat 4 winds look like then checkout Hurricane Irma videos from the Caribbean or Hurricane Dorian videos from Abaco.

The Englewood video with the times, the peak conditions there do look 120-140mph. I think his estimates of 25-50 at the start of the video are a bit too low. I've been in several TS and stronger than that usually.

That other chaser in the parking garage near Fawcett Memorial in Port Charlotte is amazing footage. at the very brief peak he's feeling cat4 winds and he compared the Tampa radar estimates to the time of his footage and they suggest it.

Punta Gorda on the very edge of the weaker part of the storm right before the calm of the eye had a wind gust to 135mph and then the instrument failed and no readings for the stronger second half. I live under 2 miles from PGD I can walk there. 135mph gusts in the first half makes sense because I walked around in the eye and looked at damage. The second half did a lot more. I'd say at my location gusts approached 155mph the second half and sustained 125 to 130! The woods were totally shredded and stripped of leaves by me. That isn't cat2 or weak cat3 winds. If not for the stronger post charley codes, we would have had a lot of structural failures in my area. One of our hotels is still closed and will likely be wrecked and a loss. It got shredded good.

Port Charlotte clearly had higher winds, especially towards 776. One of the gas stations got trashed like that one in hurricane Charley.

I was shocked at Michael Laca's footage from the first half of Ian though. Those gusts look pretty impressive for the first half of the storm and stronger than what Josh Morgeman had in the first half about 5 miles south.

Also, in the northern eyewall someone in Port Charlotte recorded a sustained wind of 115mph. I suspect in the western half that would been around 130.

The damage in Sanibel facing the Gulf with no trees as a buffer was pretty impressive, the non surge damage to third stories. Clearly those sustained winds were 140-145!

Jock Williams was in Boca Grande and those winds were violent. Note Boca is built VERY well! He had wind gusts to 168mph on his truck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xIYijouHlw

And Reed Timmer also documented debarked trees on Pine Island the next day from the wind. Even here in Punta Gorda didn't see that extreme.

[Ianswfl]

Nice video from North Port. The 25 minute to the 28 minute portion of the video is total white out. Those are likely cat4 winds.

In North Port if you go on I75 there is about a 5 mile stretch of it where a lot of the pine trees are bent like broken tooth pics still. Even with all the leaves on trees grown back it is still visible. Likely that was one of the strongest bands on the back side that rotated in. El Jobean, state road 776 there is a lot of wind damage still visible. The wind blew power poles all to the side and the trees are a lot more bent than anywhere else except Boca Grand or the barrier islands.

People are only focusing on the surge. Around here in Charlotte County a lot of the buildings repaired and built after Charley helped A LOT! After Ian the tree damage and such was severe around me. Defoliated in areas like around my neighborhood and downtown the trees got shredded. Around me you could see buildings far away that I couldn't see in the woods before because the trees were stripped. If not for the newer structures around here built post Andrew or Charley, the wind damage would have been severe to structures. You saw on Sanibel the older hotels and condos near the water had their 3rd floors failing and exposed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdKfkFHOP08

[Ianswfl]

New clip I came across. backside, 24 minute mark starts some VERY impressive winds. based on his location on the map it looks like he's in Lake Suzy in southern DeSoto County, just inland from Port Charlotte. Pretty violent winds on that backside after the 24 minute mark. Ian, the more north you were in Southwest Florida, the stronger the wind minus Sanibel, Captiva, and Pine Island. The eastern side was still pretty potent before the land interaction. Those are no cat2 winds beyond 24 min mark.

If not for the post Andrew building codes, things would been a lot worse with the wind damage. Charley took out a lot of the older buildings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gml_BZiZHi0

[Ianswfl]

Looking at all the data there wasn't a ton of recon data in this thing, especially day of landfall. Why does it seem the last 10 or so years there aeems to be skimping on recon missions especially close to landfall? Is it because radar data is getting better? Nhc seems to use radar more often now in estimating intensities.

Ian for example dopplar velocities did support some cat4 winds over port charlotte at mainland landfall. Punta Gorda had about a 15 min period where the radar was supporting near cat4 conditions.

Winks new radar is also a lot better and was picking up some wicked winds. Was shocked at the southern eyewall near ft myers beach was pretty strong.

Recon didn't do much sampling before landfall of the west side. The stronger west side was not sampled well at all.

The nhc ian report also stated the western eyewall was under sampled.

Pressure went from 937 to 941 at landfall so 150ish down from 160 seems about right.

[Ianswfl]

Watching more videos, and watching Pine Island ones again such as Reed Timmer's series of videos. Lots of tree debarking on parts of Pine Island. Reed only posted video from the weaker eastern eyewall and again peak in that easily looks 130 gusting over 150 on the weaker side at his location. They had a pretty good band on Pine Island pulse up on the eastern side. That's the thing with Ian on the eastern side. Lots of pulses and moats on the eastern eyewall so some areas got hit harder. parts of Pine Island were winners when it comes to damage. Also saw a royal Palm with a hard part of a palm frond driven straight through it like the 2x4 in Andrew.

The eastern part of the eyewall on the islands was still fairly intense, but on mainland Florida it was weaker due to hours of land interaction. The weaker eastern eyewall was a lot more powerful in Pine Island, Boca Grande, Sanibel than it was here in Punta Gorda.

[Ianswfl]

Watching Severe Studios again, and the Surge Cam 5 on Sanibel, on the Gulf side was very intense and this was the "weak" eastern side of the storm. This is a very short clip. At the peak of it right before the calm of the eye came the footage is VERY intense. On the eastern side those winds must be sustained around 140. Total whiteout and that palm tree is violently bending. And it's not really a gusty wind, but a sustained pounding like you saw on Mexico Beach footage. Granted not as strong of course.

The eastern Eyewall wasn't that weak until after interacting with land. It was still intense over Pine Island and the islands. Reed Timmer also had some intense wind on the eastern eyewall.

This explains why on Sanibel why some of the third story structures basically had catastrophic structural failures with walls blown out and just trusses of the roof remaining. If anyone stayed and went to the third floor on some of those structures they'd be in trouble from the wind.

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

[Ianswfl]

New clip. The 13 second mark is the weaker northeastern eyewall. Some very intense gusts there, especially around the 21 second mark. This is on Manasota Key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyDNJVgD4C8

Tomorrow, Michael is releasing his extended Ian footage from Port Charlotte. His footage was among the greatest of Ian in the eyewall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPBS0ptUhw

[Ianswfl]

Extended version released!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPBS0ptUhw

[SFLcane]

Extended version released!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPBS0ptUhw

Just unreal footage noboby films like Laca i have know him for many many years. The detail is just awesome make sure you watch in 4k!

[Ianswfl]

Extended version released!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPBS0ptUhw

Just unreal footage noboby films like Laca i have know him for many many years. The detail is just awesome make sure you watch in 4k!

I was shocked at the apartments just behind Fauwcett Hospital that were damaged. I mean like the plywood from the roofs and walls blown out on some of them.

Those apartments were there before Charley hit. They survived Charley but had some units with catastrophic roof and wall failure from Ian.

Could it be that they were repaired from Charley but some of the structure was compromised from Charley but wasn't visible to inspectors after Charley? His estimates are pretty accurate. I think it was around 130mph there. I would put final landfall in the Port Charlotte Punta Gorda area at 130mph just simply due to land interaction. I disagree with the 145mph intensity when it made final landfall in Punta Gorda. Unless that 145mph winds was over Placida and Boca Grande while the center was over Punta Gorda. Then technically it would be 145.

Boca Grande got smoked. Jock Willaims was on there during it. Their homes are of outstanding quality on Boca which saved it. Placida was a different story.

[Ianswfl]

David Velez who had an instrument mounted onto this car in Port Charlotte converted the mph with a computer program to calculate what the gust would been at 10m in an urban area and it came out to 157mph gusts had his instrument been at the standard 10m height, not ground level.

Makes sense to me. For final landfall I have Ian at 130mph, not 145 like NHC does simply due to land interaction and slow movement. But a gust to 157mph an intensity of 135 sustained would very much make sense. Michael Laca was in the same area and had EF2 tornado damage to apartments in that area so 130-135 sustained gusts to 157 makes perfect sense.

PGD had a gust to 135 on the edge of the weaker eastern eye when the instrument failed. I live near the airport and sustained winds in my area I think were a bit less since I'm further south. About 125mph gusting to 150 on the western eyewall.

Lots of tree damage and damage to older buildings in Charlotte County, espeically by Englewood that didn't have a rebuild after Charley. Had Charley not hit SWFL, I think you could have added another 10 billion in damages to Ian due to wind damage simply because the buildings here wouldn't have been as strong.