Possible Hurricane Applications of the Enhanced Fujita Scale

[milankovitch]

There was some talk a while back about the potential collapse of high-rises in worst case hurricanes. The new enhanced fujita scale while certainly not designed for hurricanes is as close as I have ever seen to answering this question.

Three-second gusts from a tornado at 228 mph but ranging from 190-290 could be expected to cause significant strucutal deformation to 20+ story highrises. There are obvious differences between hurricanes and tornados but this would suggest that substantial damage to older high-rises is possible with a strong category 4 or category 5 landfall.

Source page http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ef-scale.html

The page also has damage at different wind speeds for 28 other types of strucutes.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Interesting concept. A lot of people around here talk about "vertical" evacuation; but I tend to agree--this could be just as dangerous as simply riding it out in a 2 storey home. I prefer "inland" evacuation and quickly when one of these monsters heads my way.

A2K

[Aslkahuna]

The high rise building belonging to an Insurance Company in Lubbock TX was actually twisted permanently when it was struck by the F5 tornado in May 1970.

Steve

[Extremeweatherguy]

Although it may not collapse, the Enhanced scale shows that it only takes 145mph winds to cause significant damage to curtain walls and interior walls...which would mean that huge chucks of skyscraper would possibly begin falling to the ground. Scary thought.

[Scorpion]

We have yet to see what will happen to a major city in major hurricane winds. Hopefully we will not see the day.

[f5]

We have yet to see what will happen to a major city in major hurricane winds. Hopefully we will not see the day.

we almost got to test that had Rita hit downtown Houston

[mike815]

yup sure did

[Derek Ortt]

Rita would have brought cat 1 winds at the most to Houston... similar to what Wilma brought to Miami. SFMR indicates that Rita was not even a 3 at landfall... plus, it would have spent about 3 hours on land prior to moving into Houston, resulting in cat 1 winds at the very worst. Galveston would have had higher winds though

[Jim Cantore]

We have yet to see what will happen to a major city in major hurricane winds. Hopefully we will not see the day.

hate to say it but there is no avoiding it

eventually its going to happen and we cant stop it we can only prepare

[Margie]

From a discussion I had on Friday with a met specializing in wind analyses, on the EF, one thing to remember. The EF identifies the windspeed required to do the specified damage in only one 3-second gust (i.e., the tornado).

In a hurricane, there can be 50-100 gusts. Many smaller-intensity gusts from a hurricane can do the same level of damage as the one higher gust; there was a series of images showing just that from one stormchaser site that was recently listed on a blog entry...a building taken apart over time by a series of gusts.

[f5]

Miami's skyline will get it someday.There is an Andrew type storm out there waiting to be born under perfect atmospheric conditions