N.O.--Cat. 1 Conditions for Katrina???

[gk1]

no one knows more about Cat. 1 hurricanes than residents of SE La. and the New Orleans area. I can name them by the dozens--Florence, Bob, Babe, Juan, and many more. We know what damage Cat. 1 can do. We had much more than Cat. 1 winds for Katrina. You would have had to be in Katrina for yourself to see what type of wind she produced. The media shows you only half the story. It's hard to know what type of storm this was sitting back in New Jersey and other areas of the country.

[Pearl River]

BRAVO gk1. I've been saying this on the board a lot. If using damage to assess the post storm classification is useless, then throw out the fujita scale. That would be like one of us looking at earthquake pictures and stating that wasn't a 8.7, I don't see that much damage, that must have been a 5.4. It's absurd to sit in another part of the country and make a conclussion based on pictures.

[MiamiensisWx]

I'm sorry if I seemed to be jumping to conclusions in the other thread you posted, gk1, on declassifying Katrina. I'm sorry!

[TSmith274]

Now we're in the holiday spirit!

[Jam151]

no one knows more about Cat. 1 hurricanes than residents of SE La. and the New Orleans area. I can name them by the dozens--Florence, Bob, Babe, Juan, and many more. We know what damage Cat. 1 can do. We had much more than Cat. 1 winds for Katrina. You would have had to be in Katrina for yourself to see what type of wind she produced. The media shows you only half the story. It's hard to know what type of storm this was sitting back in New Jersey and other areas of the country.

Hurricane Florence: Best track data shows that sustained winds were no higher than 70mph in New Orleans, and probably less. The two observations from New Orleans were from MSY and another station that wasn't clearly identified.

Sustained: 34 and 37 knots
Gusts: 37 and 50 knots

Hurricane Babe: No sustained winds of hurricane force hit any part of the Louisiana coastline. The highest recorded gust was 46 knots in Grand Isle and 38 knots in New Orleans....34 knots in Morgan City.

Hurricane Juan: The only surface recorded hurricane winds were from offshore oil platforms. Is it possible that minimal hurricane force winds were felt along some portions of the coast. Yes, it is possible, but no doubt did New Orleans recieve nothing more than moderate tropical storm force winds.

MSY had nothing more than a 57 knot wind gust in Andrew. It is quite possible that Katrina gave New Orleans much higher sustained winds than it has recieved in a VERY long time.

[skywarn]

BRAVO gk1. I've been saying this on the board a lot. If using damage to assess the post storm classification is useless, then throw out the fujita scale. That would be like one of us looking at earthquake pictures and stating that wasn't a 8.7, I don't see that much damage, that must have been a 5.4. It's absurd to sit in another part of the country and make a conclussion based on pictures.

I agree also.

[Jam151]

BRAVO gk1. I've been saying this on the board a lot. If using damage to assess the post storm classification is useless, then throw out the fujita scale. That would be like one of us looking at earthquake pictures and stating that wasn't a 8.7, I don't see that much damage, that must have been a 5.4. It's absurd to sit in another part of the country and make a conclussion based on pictures.

I live in the area and have seen the worst of the worst in LA. I haven't seen coastal MS yet but that is irrelevant to my main point. Now about the fujita scale, tornadoes don't last more than a couple minutes each while hurricanes can take anywhere from 6-12 hours to do it's work. I don't think anyone can make a fair comparison between tornado damage estimates and those of hurricanes.

[Pearl River]

Jam151 said:

Now about the fujita scale, tornadoes don't last more than a couple minutes each while hurricanes can take anywhere from 6-12 hours to do it's work. I don't think anyone can make a fair comparison between tornado damage estimates and those of hurricanes.

What I'm trying to say is damage is damage, whether it's a tornado or hurricane. You would have to come up with a formula based on location, not monetary formula, because of sparse population in some areas. Someone could come up with a formula, I'm sure, because there is a formula for everything.

[jazzfan1247]

BRAVO gk1. I've been saying this on the board a lot. If using damage to assess the post storm classification is useless, then throw out the fujita scale. That would be like one of us looking at earthquake pictures and stating that wasn't a 8.7, I don't see that much damage, that must have been a 5.4. It's absurd to sit in another part of the country and make a conclussion based on pictures.

This is indeed completely unfair. The reason why damage is used for the fujita scale is: How else are you gonna measure tornado strength? You can't measure their wind speeds because they are too localized, and their formation too unpredictable to get accurate measurements...thus the need to use damage as a intensity-indicator. For tornadoes...there is no other way.

For hurricanes however, they're out there for an extended period of time, and have a much broader wind field, thus it is much easier to get accurate wind measurements using FL data, dropsondes, sea spray, radar velocities, etc. Using damage to classify hurricanes is not COMPLETELY useless, but in comparison to such data I stated above, it is not anywhere near as useful.

As far as the earthquake analogy, this is ridiculous. Katrina was not downgraded due to the "lack of wind damage", it was downgraded because the highest dropsonde recording was 99 kts, and the experimental SFMR and radar velocities and flight level winds (using the correct reduction factor) all supported the same conclusion. In fact they even kept the final intensity up at 110 and 105 kts at the landfalls because they assumed the highest winds weren't measured.

Nobody in the scientific world is making any assumptions based on pictures. They are making these "assumptions" based on hard data collected by aircraft recon, radar, and surface wind measurements. I could care less what the pictures look like; if the hard data says that X winds occurred there, that's what I have to go with, considering it is the BEST evidence we have available.

[Pearl River]

jazzfan1247 said:

Pearl River wrote:
BRAVO gk1. I've been saying this on the board a lot. If using damage to assess the post storm classification is useless, then throw out the fujita scale. That would be like one of us looking at earthquake pictures and stating that wasn't a 8.7, I don't see that much damage, that must have been a 5.4. It's absurd to sit in another part of the country and make a conclussion based on pictures.


This is indeed completely unfair. The reason why damage is used for the fujita scale is: How else are you gonna measure tornado strength? You can't measure their wind speeds because they are too localized, and their formation too unpredictable to get accurate measurements...thus the need to use damage as a intensity-indicator. For tornadoes...there is no other way.

For hurricanes however, they're out there for an extended period of time, and have a much broader wind field, thus it is much easier to get accurate wind measurements using FL data, dropsondes, sea spray, radar velocities, etc. Using damage to classify hurricanes is not COMPLETELY useless, but in comparison to such data I stated above, it is not anywhere near as useful.

As far as the earthquake analogy, this is ridiculous. Katrina was not downgraded due to the "lack of wind damage", it was downgraded because the highest dropsonde recording was 99 kts, and the experimental SFMR and radar velocities and flight level winds (using the correct reduction factor) all supported the same conclusion. In fact they even kept the final intensity up at 110 and 105 kts at the landfalls because they assumed the highest winds weren't measured.

Nobody in the scientific world is making any assumptions based on pictures. They are making these "assumptions" based on hard data collected by aircraft recon, radar, and surface wind measurements. I could care less what the pictures look like; if the hard data says that X winds occurred there, that's what I have to go with, considering it is the BEST evidence we have available.

Ok, I'm absurd and ridiculous. I did not say science was using pictures. There are several people on this board who have based their opinions on pictures. SFMR is an experimental model and as with a lot of experimental things, they are not always accurate. Katrina will be revisited.

[Brent]

Do we need another thread on this??? Really...

[cycloneye]

This member made a thread about the same theme and because of that this one is locked.