Wilma declared a Category 2 storm in Florida
By MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@MiamiHerald.com
Hurricane Wilma struck Broward and Miami-Dade counties as a Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of around 100 mph, though its ferocity varied from place to place and time to time, according to an official report issued Tuesday by hurricane forecasters.
''Most locations experienced at least Category 1 conditions and a number of locations experienced Category 2 conditions,'' said Richard Pasch, lead author of the report produced by the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County.
Category 1 hurricanes have sustained winds of 74-95 mph for at least one minute at a height of 33 feet; Category 2 storms have sustained winds of 96-110 mph.
Wilma raced across southern Florida on Oct. 24, approaching from the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall near Cape Romano on the southwest coast as a Category 3 storm with 120 mph sustained wind, and crossing the state in 4 ½ hours.
It was blamed for five direct deaths in Florida, plus 30 other deaths. It triggered power outages for 6 million customers in 42 Florida counties and left 98 percent of South Floridians without electricity. It inflicted $6.1 billion in insured damage, according to the Property Claims Service, and an equal amount of uninsured damage.
The highest winds tended to be in Broward, Palm Beach and northern Miami-Dade counties, with some unpopulated areas experiencing sustained 109-mph wind, according to the report. Some populated areas endured winds of 100 mph or slightly higher, Pasch said.
In addition, gusts likely reached 115 mph in some places. And residents of high-rise buildings could have felt sustained winds and gusts 10 percent higher than those experienced closer to the ground.
Destroyed by wind or shattered by debris, thousands of windows popped out of office buildings, condominiums and hotels in downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Despite the beliefs of many, no tornadoes associated with the storm were detected in Miami-Dade or Broward counties, he said.
But it is important to remember that the winds of even a Category 1 hurricane can be equal to those of a weak tornado -- and that a hurricane's wind, rain and inflicted damage are not uniform throughout the area it strikes.
''The intensity of a hurricane does not mean that the strength of the wind is the same everywhere around storm's circulation,'' Pasch said. ``And there's the time factor, with different events occuring at different times.''
I think it's almost impossible to imagine how fast the air molecules were moving around the hurricane when Wilma's eye was just 2 miles across. It was like a giant vacuum! 
