Isabel's Strongest Winds

[dittomonkey]

I found something very interesting on the NHC Website.

According to this H-Wind image the Strongest winds were not on the eyewall, but about 49-51 NM North-East of the Eye-Wall.



If You go to:

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003261-0918/Isabel.A2003261.1555.500m.jpg

And look at the Beautiful Picture of Isabel making Landfall, and you see where the eye was, and compare that to the Wind Map, you will see that the Area in Orange would be right over top of Hatteras Village, where the most damage was done.

Comments?

[wxman57]

Right, and if you go to the Hurricane Research Division (HRD) web site, you can get the whole suite of wind field analyses for every storm in modern history, including the full set of graphics for Isabel:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/data_sub/wind.html

Just select 2003 from the drop-down menu and choose Isabel.

As for Isabel's wind field, it was quite assymetrical, as are many hurricanes. Note that the strongest winds were only in a small part of the right front quadrant. Winds were much less in other quadrants. Compare your image above to one when Isabel was near peak intensity. As you can see, those in NC were quite lucky that Isabel was only a shadow of its former self.

<img src="ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/hwind/2003/al13.2003/0913/1930/col2deg.png">