Experienced 110-mph winds?

[SamSagnella]

In light of all of the recent downplaying of the strength a Category 3 hurricane, I am just curious as to how many people have experience with winds greater than 110mph in person in their entire lives. This can be either from thunderstorm outflow, tornadoes (>F1), or hurricanes (>Cat2). If, and only if, you have a first-hand account of what it was like, please post it here. (I have no doubt that many S2k-ers have incredible stories from winds of significantly lesser magnitudes, but for the time being please reserve this thread for 110mph+. Thanks.)

I am sick of everyone saying that a landfalling Category 3 is something to shrug off.

EDIT: I just thought of one more thing to add to your replies: if you could do it all over, would you have stayed? Thanks again.

[skysummit]

My highest was 128mph in Andrew, and 114mph in Katrina.

[Lowpressure]

Fred 1979-Ocean Springs, MS. 135mph 27.99 inches

[magwitch]

at least that, but not in the fashion you folks expect -- we get those winds in chinooks here(gusts up to 140mph) by the foothills of colorado.

EDIT: oh, what it was like. viciously loud and frightening where we were, with several neighbours losing their roofs even though most houses were constructed with this in mind. closer to the foothills, telephone poles were snapped in half. we lost a few trees, but the native pines usually take the wind pretty well, and nothing else really grows to any appreciable height. due to the adiabatic warming, temperatures generally rise 40 degrees in the span of a couple hours, which is neat.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Boulder/wind.html

[SamSagnella]

LOL...in order to prove my point, yall need to post what those winds were like/what damage they did, etc. LOL.

By all means, non-thunderstorm wind gusts are included too...

[docjoe]

Hurricane Dennis july 10, 2005. I had cat 1 and maybe some cat 2 gusts with Ivan but nothing like Dennis. I am about 10 miles inland as the crow flies due north of where Dennis made landfall. I saw 50 and 60 foot trees tumble like they were weightless. I watched the top 20 feet or so break off of several trees and fly through the air over the tree line at the back of my property and still be 50 feet or more in the air when they disappeared from sight.....a hundred feet or more from where they started. It was truly an amazing spectacle.

docjoe

[infonut]

I went thru Elena in '85, right after I moved to Pascagoula, MS. I saw a tree pushing a car down the road, a roof across the street peel off shingle by shingle, then it got really bad. I drank myself to sleep. Woke up, all was calm. hurray! then they told me it was the eye and would start again, so, I drank again. I moved after Juan (the rain event), I don't like hurricanes, but that is why I am so interested now. oh, yeah, I'm not a drinker as a rule.


edit to add: Elena was a cat 3; 115 mph with gusts of 140 mph (according to the local newspapers at that time)

[WeatherEmperor]

About 160mph during Andrew. Absolute scariest moments of my life.

<RICKY>

[jpigott]

let me preface this by saying i'm some what of an adrenaline junkie . . . i live in palm beach gardens, fl (in northern palm beach county, maybe 5 miles from the jupiter inlet for those familiar with "break points") during Jeanne last year we stayed at his house and didn't lose power completely (had a # of outages), we were able to moniter on his computer when the intense convective bands were coming in on radar. We would run outside when they were incoming and stand out in the street (away from the path of any falling trees). As the southern eyewall was making its way in i ran out but my buddy stayed on his front porch and watched. I was only out there for a couple minutes when a gust briefly lifted me a couple inches off the ground and i lost my footing banging up my elbow pretty good. We probably 'only' saw 75-85mph with gusts bwtn 90-100mph. That will be the last time i stand out in a hurricane while the inner core is over my head

[DESTRUCTION5]

About 160mph during Andrew. Absolute scariest moments of my life.

<RICKY>

Same here as I was holding My Hallway Walls up..

[sprink52]

Hurricane David in 1979. On vacation in the Bahamas, Andros Island. Taught me the deffinition of the word AWE. 135 mph feels like your skin is going to peel off. The wind at that speed tears at your clothes. You can't face it with your eyes open. It is also hard to breathe.

[jujubean]

I'm afraid to even ask you guys what you were doing that you could see this stuff, but anyway I went through andrew, but I'm not really sure what the exact wind speeds were for my area. I couldn't see anything because first all the windows were boarded and second it was dark but, the sound was deafening ...it was so bad our ears were popping...I think the pressure causes that.If anyone knows what the sustained wind speeds were for my area I'd really like to know.

[baygirl_1]

I was young when Frederic came through here in 1979, but I remember it very well. It came through overnight, so we really couldn't see anything. However, the sound of the wind and everything it was blowing by, over, and into our house is something I will never forget. Trees were falling all around the house (on 3 of the 4 sides). The window shutters (decorative not protective) were dislodged. The power box was ripped off when 2 trees fell on the power line leading to the house. It even blew out the mortar from between the bricks in our chimney!

[SouthFLTropics]

The eyes of Frances and Jeanne went directly over my house last year. Myself and my family got to experience the full fury of both of them. In fact my dad and my uncle were on top of my grandmothers roof in the middle of the night during the eye of Jeanne. They were trying to nail down the ridge vent because it was leaking. They got off of the roof just in time before the backside of the eye wall hit. My dad later told me he heard to roar of the wind and rain coming down the street before they got off of the roof. I told him he was nuts. Meanwhile, my wife and I road out the storm at our house and escaped both storms with minimal damage. Now we are preparing again, but after being able to ride both of those storms last year I feel pretty comfortable about our chances with Wilma considering we are on the east coast. Now if Wilma was coming in from the Atlantic, that would be a different story.

[soonertwister]

I live in Boulder, and in the past (not so much recently) we've had some ungodly high wind gusts, at the worst over 140 miles per hour. And in those extreme wind events the sustained winds can get up around 90 for hours. But a sustained wind over 100 miles per hour I have not seen.

I've had a storm front overtake my position with sustained straight-line winds over 100 in Oklahoma once, over 90 another time (I was injured in that one). Never ever would I want to be anywhere near any winds over about 115 max that were sustained. At 115 well-built houses won't sustain too much damage, although trees will take a big hit.

But at something like 135, that's not something I even want to see. A gust over 140 is more than enough.

One time I was up very early and went to a convenience store at about 5AM to grab a munchie and some coffee. As I was crossing the boulevard on the way back home I got hit by wind gusts that literally almost swept me down the street. Found out later that 5 prestressed concrete beams used to make a highway overpass less than a mile east of where I was walked off the support trestles down onto the highway below. One person crashed into the fallen beams and was seriously injured.

Those beams won't secured, but they weighed 45 tons (90,000 pounds) each. Five of them were displaced up to about 50 feet sideways as they crabwalked before crashing down. That's a good demonstration of the power of wind.

I've seen strong F4 tornado damage shortly after the event, and the impact of seeing the damage is visceral. In one case, it was like a gigantic brush hog had chopped off large oak trees at around 10 feet off the ground. These were extremely strong trees which trunks which often exceeded 3 feet in diameter where they were chopped off.

A pickup truck that was on an adjacent highway was caught in the winds and rolled a long ways before it ended up in a tree-lined ravine. The ball of metal that was once a truck was about 6 feet wide. Unfortunately, the occupant didn't survive. Ironically, he was from Wichita, Kansas, which was hit with a devastating tornado the same day, with quite a few people killed.

I am fascinated by severe weather, have experienced some, even some very life-threatening experiences (especially blizzards and flash floods), but I enjoy studying it from afar. I wish no one that fury.

[Terrell]

How hard did Charley blow when he was in Orlando last year? I wasn't outside in the storm but I found the winds howling outside my apartment to be a bit unnerving.

[otowntiger]

Can't say I have. Came awful close though last year when Charley roared through. 105 mph was scary enough and might I add quite impressive to be over 100 miles inland from point of landfall.

[cancunkid]

I was in an F1 tornado at a friends house which ripped the roof off at night and we couldn't go outside because of downed powerlines, I was only 18 and she had just moved into this little house on her parents property in the country. Her Dad kept yelling afterwards to not come out of the house because the powerlines and trees were everywhere so that was creepy and I had an F3 go within a half block of my house while I was outside. Found three old high school track trophies from a guy who lived across town who lost his house. Personally in both cases it freaked me out bad so I can't imagine what it is like to hear that sound for hours on end in a hurricane.

[otowntiger]

How hard did Charley blow when he was in Orlando last year? I wasn't outside in the storm but I found the winds howling outside my apartment to be a bit unnerving.

105 was the highest gust measured at OIA, the Executive airport reported 86, I believe.

[Scorpion]

The eyes of Frances and Jeanne went directly over my house last year. Myself and my family got to experience the full fury of both of them. In fact my dad and my uncle were on top of my grandmothers roof in the middle of the night during the eye of Jeanne. They were trying to nail down the ridge vent because it was leaking. They got off of the roof just in time before the backside of the eye wall hit. My dad later told me he heard to roar of the wind and rain coming down the street before they got off of the roof. I told him he was nuts. Meanwhile, my wife and I road out the storm at our house and escaped both storms with minimal damage. Now we are preparing again, but after being able to ride both of those storms last year I feel pretty comfortable about our chances with Wilma considering we are on the east coast. Now if Wilma was coming in from the Atlantic, that would be a different story.

You probably got 95 mph winds or so at most from Frances, and did not experience 110 mph winds in Jeanne. The Cat 3 winds were confined to a tiny area and may not even have reached shore. 110 mph winds are STRONG. I have never experienced such wind in my life, probably only 80 mph or so from Frances is the most I've seen.