National Climate Data Center Katrina Report

[MGC]

Don't know if this has been posted on here from the NCDC. Report includes side-by-side satellite images comparing Camile to Katrina....MGC

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/tech-report-200501z.pdf

[Normandy]

Wow, looking at that pic of Camille approaching leads me to believe it was no where near 190 mph. The western side of it seems to have dry air intrusion just like Katrina did.....looks like Camille might have weekened just like Katrina did. Also amazing to see how Katrina just dwarfs Camille.

[HURAKAN]

Very interesting. Amazed by the pictures of the lighthouse comparison. Thanks for sharing.

[Lindaloo]

Wow, looking at that pic of Camille approaching leads me to believe it was no where near 190 mph. The western side of it seems to have dry air intrusion just like Katrina did.....looks like Camille might have weekened just like Katrina did. Also amazing to see how Katrina just dwarfs Camille.

How do you get that by looking at pics? NOAA states clearly that Camille was a CAT5.

[Normandy]

Wow, looking at that pic of Camille approaching leads me to believe it was no where near 190 mph. The western side of it seems to have dry air intrusion just like Katrina did.....looks like Camille might have weekened just like Katrina did. Also amazing to see how Katrina just dwarfs Camille.

How do you get that by looking at pics? NOAA states clearly that Camille was a CAT5.

Because the western side of Camille looks deteriorated, just like the western side of every powerful gulf coast hurricane that has hit since we have had sattelites. I never said Camille was not a Cat 5, i just argue that it was no where near the 190 mph strength it was given, and Katrina proved thats it was not the "mythical hurricane" it was made out to be (IE it could be outdone). I think it was a Cat 5, but barely. Im talking 160 mph, and probably the cat 5 winds didnt make it onshore (because the 190 mph was gusts apparently).

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

So Camille had the same problem as Katrina. If we remember Katrina it droped from 175 to 125. From Peak to last landfall in which is around 12 hours. 50 mph.

So lets say that Camille "was" 190 out over the Gulf in which it appears it did something close to what Katrina did. So 140 mph you would get...The 190 might of been way to high because it could of been taken by a gust/or by the wrong height like many hurricanes of the time.

So by this theory it was 140 to 160 mph...

[Derek Ortt]

how about the fact that its possible that the north GOM cannot support anything above a marginal cat 3. Notice which systems have weakened in the NGOM... all cat 4's and 5's, while the 1's and 2's have managed to intensify or at least maintain their intensity

[Lindaloo]

how about the fact that its possible that the north GOM cannot support anything above a marginal cat 3. Notice which systems have weakened in the NGOM... all cat 4's and 5's, while the 1's and 2's have managed to intensify or at least maintain their intensity

BUT, if the conditions are right and that is what the data shows, Camille was a 5.

[Derek Ortt]

there official Katrina report states gusts to 190, not sustained winds. Something is wrong either with the report or the HURDAT file. Lets wait until the reanalysis settles this question once and for all

[Scorpion]

I just can't see Camille not being a 5, even with the western side eroded. Yes, it is the NGOM, however, it made landfall with a 909 pressure, so that was only a 4 mb rise from its peak.

[MiamiensisWx]

When Camille was in the southern, central, and north-central Gulf of Mexico I think it was a Category Five, and certainly one at it's peak intensity. At landfall, I think Camille was not 190MPH sustained winds (those were gusts), but I think Camille was AT LEAST a high-end Category Four at landfall (145MPH to 155MPH sustained winds at the very least). In other words, I think Camille was either a high-end Category Four or Category Five at landfall (with sustained winds in the 160MPH to 175MPH range if it was a Category Five).

If you check out pictures when Camille was in southern and central Gulf of Mexico, you will see a Category Five appearance on satellite imagery. Also, on images of Camille just prior to landfall, the western side does not appear very deteriorated or open due to shear or dry air at all, compared to Katrina. NOT saying Katrina wasn't well-organized or destructive, just making an observation.

Either way, they have been both very deadly storms and deserve respect. Any storm does.

[Derek Ortt]

Scorpion,

remember that when I flew into Rita, we had a 911mb pressure... yet we only found 110KT winds (FL winds suggested cat 4, but the vertical velocities had decreased from the day before, resulting in only about 80% of the FL winds reaching the surface instead of the usual 90. I wonder if something similar happened with Camielle... what I wouldn't give to see the actual recon data and wish we had SFMR and dropsondes

[MGC]

Fredrick and Betsy were both intensifying until landfall with continued pressue drops. Fredrick would have been a 4 had it not run out of water. And, what makes you think that when a sonde is deployed it is guarenteed to find the strongest winds? Tell me you can drop a sonde into a 200 mile wide hurricane with exact precision to finds the strongest winds.......MGC

[Derek Ortt]

the dropsondes do cover most of the eye wall. They are NOT vertical profiles, but instead circle around the eye wall due to the extreme wind speeds. By looking at the entire profiles, one can deduce a reasonable surface wind speed estimate.

I beleive Betsy weakened some in its final hours over water, from a 4 to a 3, though this is also subject to the reanalysis. Frederic approached as a 3, which the NGOM may be able to support (also may have moved over the stretch where the shelf is the closest to the coast)

[Air Force Met]

How do you get that by looking at pics? NOAA states clearly that Camille was a CAT5.

First of all...NHC makes satellite intensity estimates all the time...so that's not a big deal. Second...no where near 190 doesn't mean it's a Cat 4 ... It just mean's it's not 190. No where near 190 can still be 160 or 165....it doesn't mean it's 115

[MGC]

Well Dereck, I've held a sonde in my hands. Small compact instruments they are. I got the show and tell demo on Miss Piggy back in the spring. The sonde operator explained how they worked quite well and haveing a technical background I understand their working. But, it is the provervial needle in the haystack. Have any studies been done on the probability of a deployed sonde at any particular moment sampleing the highest winds in the eyewall? Sure the folks on the plane try their best to hit the spot where they think the higest winds will be but I'm sure they often miss. Personally I would think the stepped freq radar would be better at measuring the wind. The rain drops would be accelerated easier than a relativly heavy sonde. Unless the doppler has accuracy issues at high level winds. Radar can sample a much larger slice of the atmosphere than a sonde per unit time.......MGC

[Derek Ortt]

the FL winds, I believe, are based upon on board FL winds. Not sure about during Camielle though

As for the sondes... no studies that I know of. However, my research is based upon sondes. What causes them to start drifting with the wind is that when deployed, a parachute is released to give higher vertical resolution data

[Lindaloo]

How do you get that by looking at pics? NOAA states clearly that Camille was a CAT5.

First of all...NHC makes satellite intensity estimates all the time...so that's not a big deal. Second...no where near 190 doesn't mean it's a Cat 4 ... It just mean's it's not 190. No where near 190 can still be 160 or 165....it doesn't mean it's 115

Dang, that took me about 15 minutes to understand. LOL! Thanks.

[docjoe]

on a somewhat related subject regarding Dennis. Does anyone care to comment on how it dropped in strength like many storms before it?? Just a few hours before landfall it was still being listed as a strong Cat 4. Did it weaken for the same reasons as Ivan, Katrina, etc or was it more related to eyewall replacement. It seems to me if Dennis had come ashore just 4-6 hours sooner it would have been a cat 4 at landfall....any comments???
docjoe


P.S. Seems like i read in a met blog (possibly on weather underground) that ERC was responsible for Dennis losing strength.

[Margie]

I should be going to bed but just logged in and saw this thread; then of course I had to quickly take a look at the report. First general impression, I was disappointed.

Also found the lack of information regarding the Pascagoula river basin and the damage in Jackson County puzzling, as well as the omission of some of the key wind gusts recorded in Jackson and Mobile counties, all very close to the shoreline (gusts which are in the post tropical cyclone reports from LIX and MOB). In fact there is not a single mention of Jackson County in the document. All of which follows the initial impression, which is along the lines of "where's the meat?" I've seen most of the information in the report from one place or another already.

There was a similar lack of detail regarding Plaquemines and St Bernard Parishes, both of which were simply destroyed by Katrina. Only the northern third of Plaquemines remains, but nothing at all was left in St Bernard, and several small communities on a thin strip of land between Lakes Ponchatrain and Borgne vanished, reduced to slabs, just like Lakeshore, Clermont Harbor, and Waveland did in MS. There was not even a debris field left for some of these communities.

I thought the statement about the % of homes in Hancock County that were "uninhabitable" rather odd. A very large percentage of homes in Hancock County are destroyed. They're gone. And a very large percentage of homes in Jackson County are uninhabitable due to floodwaters, although most, except for those along the water, are still standing. Thus aerial images of Pascagoula taken after the storm, while showing the obliteration of the many homes along the water, appears to show the majority of homes as undamaged. In reality, somewhere between 85-90% of the homes were flooded with at least 4 feet of water and have to be stripped down to the studs and rebuilt (that's information that came from Pascagoula's mayor). You'd think that would deserve at least a mention, considering Pascagoula is the easternmost major city on the coast, and a good 80 miles to the east of where Kat made landfall (receiving 16-18 feet of surge). There was very little land within city limits that did not flood, and all of the residental areas flooded.

To understand the extent of flooding in the three MS counties, especially the two low-lying counties of Hancock and Jackson, refer to the FEMA Katrina flood maps which were recently released for MS. I think if you haven't seen these you'll be shocked to see the just how far inland flooding occured. The FEMA documents also included a very good overall map showing the approximate range of the various surge heights but it is tucked away somewhere and not on the front page.

Also of significance for those not familiar with the MS Gulf Coast. About 90-95% of the population lives within 5 miles of the coast. There is hardly anything inland of the coast except a lot of bayous, estuaries, and woodlands. An evacuation study done I believe by NCDC showed that in 2000, 45% of the residents in these three counties lived in an area that would flood from a Cat 1 or 2, and 65% lived in an area that would be flooded by a Cat 3. All of the MS coastline (and a very small portion of the AL coastline as well) suffered Cat 3 flooding, and a portion of the MS coastline had Cat 4 flooding from Katrina (generally speaking, Pass Christian and all points west). So it would not be grossly inaccurate to state that at least 70% of the residents on the MS coast either completely lost their homes or homes were totaled or partly damaged by flooding. A couple of other interesting statistics: the population of this narrow 5-mile deep strip of coast, is about 15% of the total population of the state of MS, and the casinos brought in most of the state's revenue, and have made the difference in recent years in pulling the state out of the poverty level. It is essential that the coast is rebuilt.

Of my own family -- brother living in Pascagoula had his house totaled by flooding. No flood insurance; it was not required as he was deemed to not live in a flood plain. Mother and brother in Moss Point -- house took on water but quick action managed to save it. Quite a bit of damage though including losing part of the house, the entire KIT, the W/D, heater, A/C, etc. Ditto on the insurance. Other brother, renting a home, was high and dry, but floodwaters actually came within less than a 1/4 mile of where he lived (which was considerably inland, in the Big Point / Hurley area, further inland of Trent Lott airport, which did receive flooding despite its inland location).