Want to see some real Katrina data?

[Pearl River]

Mark, what parts of Waveland did not receive storm surge? There's a picture, I believe is on Mike's site, of the walking bridge over the hwy with the water line halfway up the screen. Was that in front of St Stanislaus school?

[Javlin]

Like the video.Now how is it that you keep your anenometer going while so many officals one go away?Some more nice Data.

[Margie]

Yes, the Tahoe had its anemometer still on it while sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western near I-10. The digital read out on the dash showed a maximum gust to 137 mph sometime that morning.

Usually a gust of 137mph would correlate to a short period of sustained winds between 85 and about almost 100mph, but given the weakened wind gradient shown in the report before landfall, which would reduce the transport of sustained winds to ground level but would also increase the ratio of gusts to sustained winds, it is more likely associated with sustained winds between 85-90mph.

This tallies with the account of another storm chaser in Gulfport:

"Wind gusts over 100mph were common in the stronger squalls...As the eastern eyewall moved ashore into Gulfport, isolated wind gusts likely peaked around 130mph in funneled regions...The most severe damage in Gulfport occurred during a two-hour period from 9:30-11:30am."

and also with another Gulfport storm chaser video showing a gust above 100mph, but sustained windspeeds just over hurricane force.

[Jim Cantore]

Yes, the Tahoe had its anemometer still on it while sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western near I-10. The digital read out on the dash showed a maximum gust to 137 mph sometime that morning. I abandoned the Tahoe but left all of the instruments AND the laptop inside and running. You can see the entire video of the landfall as seen from inside the Tahoe by clicking the link below. It is the actual archive video that was streamed live to our new subscriber site, HurricaneLiveNet.com. Mike Watkins had gone inside the hotel while I remained in the Tahoe until part of the roof came off the Hampton Inn right in front of me. Not long after that, I too went in to the hotel. You can hear and see all of this as it happened. Once I take off, the rain clutters up the windshield, but listen to those monster gusts hitting the Tahoe! At some point in there a quick burst to 137 mph hit the Tahoe. The backside was facing the wind since the RM Young anemometer is located towards the back of the roof of the Tahoe. Stacy Stewart suggested to me several years ago that we place the anemometer near the back and take measurements that way- so as to not have the entire length of the vehicle for the wind to travel over and corrupt the flow of air. I did exactly that during Katrina and feel very good about that gust. You can get these huge, but brief, bursts of wind that punch down towards the ground and spread out, like a downburst. I think that is what happened here. I was very lucky in that nothing struck the Tahoe- there were several vehicles in the same parking lot that we destroyed by flying debris.

In any case, watch the video below or download it to your computer and watch it there- you can really hear the wind screaming through after I abandon ship.

And a little FYI- we are now going to have satellite GPS locator devices for the Storm Cases that will allow us to track them if we ever lose them again. Globalstar will provide those to us this season.

http://www.hurricanelivenet.com/kattahoe2.wmv

are you going to post that online? no way I can hold it on my computer to watch it over and over lol

not to mention finish watching it

[Jim Cantore]

I forgot to ask, how does the Tahoe take all the salt spray from the hurricanes without seriously rusting?

[Jim Cantore]

it looks like the 137 gust came at about to 2-2.5 hour area of the video

[hurricanetrack]

To answer one question about how we keep our anemometer going when others fail: batteries. Large batteries. They only cost $180 each and will run (when not washed away) my full weather station plus a laptop AND transmit that data to my site for 28 hours straight. And yet there are times when there is no official data b/c there is no back-up power. The storm chasers really do fill in some voids that would otherwise remain....and the HAM radio operators help even more by passing on this critical info to the NHC.

[Margie]

Mark, is the anemometer at standard height?

[ROCK]

Yes, the Tahoe had its anemometer still on it while sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western near I-10. The digital read out on the dash showed a maximum gust to 137 mph sometime that morning.

Usually a gust of 137mph would correlate to a short period of sustained winds between 85 and about almost 100mph, but given the weakened wind gradient shown in the report before landfall, which would reduce the transport of sustained winds to ground level but would also increase the ratio of gusts to sustained winds, it is more likely associated with sustained winds between 85-90mph.

This tallies with the account of another storm chaser in Gulfport:

"Wind gusts over 100mph were common in the stronger squalls...As the eastern eyewall moved ashore into Gulfport, isolated wind gusts likely peaked around 130mph in funneled regions...The most severe damage in Gulfport occurred during a two-hour period from 9:30-11:30am."

and also with another Gulfport storm chaser video showing a gust above 100mph, but sustained windspeeds just over hurricane force.

Finally, a voice of reason. Could not have said it better myself.

[Pearl River]

ROCK wrote

Margie wrote:
hurricanetrack wrote:
Yes, the Tahoe had its anemometer still on it while sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western near I-10. The digital read out on the dash showed a maximum gust to 137 mph sometime that morning.


Usually a gust of 137mph would correlate to a short period of sustained winds between 85 and about almost 100mph, but given the weakened wind gradient shown in the report before landfall, which would reduce the transport of sustained winds to ground level but would also increase the ratio of gusts to sustained winds, it is more likely associated with sustained winds between 85-90mph.

This tallies with the account of another storm chaser in Gulfport:

"Wind gusts over 100mph were common in the stronger squalls...As the eastern eyewall moved ashore into Gulfport, isolated wind gusts likely peaked around 130mph in funneled regions...The most severe damage in Gulfport occurred during a two-hour period from 9:30-11:30am."

and also with another Gulfport storm chaser video showing a gust above 100mph, but sustained windspeeds just over hurricane force.



Finally, a voice of reason. Could not have said it better myself.

Someone who sits in front of computer all day knows more than someone who has been chasing hurricanes for a few years? Thats a real voice of reason.

[brunota2003]

Mark, is the anemometer at standard height?

the anemometer on the HLP Isuzu was roughly 15 feet above the ground...I think Mark's is right around 12 feet, if my math is good...that is awesome Mark that you will have GPS locators now...

[Margie]

Yeah I was thinking there was no way it could be 10m...that would increase the sustained wind estimates a little bit, I'm not sure how much.

[Javlin]

I heard the NHC has stuff like this but it does not seem to be the quality you guys got.I thought someone else posted that thiers might of been damaged in some past storms.

Wanted to add that the winds in Katrina reminded me alot of Elena about 100-105.Georges seemed to be a different story for some reason got the eyewall on both maybe the night time thing.

[Audrey2Katrina]

During Ivan, it took a whole day for the water to go down enough for me to walk through it to my remote vehicle in Gulf Shores,

Yeah, Gulf Shores got it real bad, and no doubt the lower lying topography had a lot to do with it. Still amazing.

One of these days I'd just love to be with a storm chaser filiming one of those things... *sigh* but being a teacher I can ill afford the necessities and the means to do so--but I can dream can't I , Sometimes I envy you guys.

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Mark, what parts of Waveland did not receive storm surge? There's a picture, I believe is on Mike's site, of the walking bridge over the hwy with the water line halfway up the screen. Was that in front of St Stanislaus school?

I saw some pictures taken at St. Stanislaus during the storm... awful. They definitely had surge there---pics of pickups and vehicles "floating" in the water... they lost one of their prized oaks shown in one of the pictures.

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Mark, is the anemometer at standard height?

the anemometer on the HLP Isuzu was roughly 15 feet above the ground...I think Mark's is right around 12 feet, if my math is good...that is awesome Mark that you will have GPS locators now...

Well, using that info, I recall a convo in here about the Michoud anemometer which went out hours before closest approach being at near 40 feet instead of the sacrosanct 32.8 or therabouts; and that those "seven feet" could mean winds speeds a good bit higher.... using that logic, just imagine what an additional 25 feet might have measured? Possibly gusts over 140-150 range--yes just speculating; but using the same logic. Also using the sustained to gust ratio which I've read is "smaller" on the BIG storms, this "could" translate to sustained of well over 110 at the time. (Not to mention there is no way to certify that these were the MAX winds any place thereabouts received--always in doubt) Surely this is more than another speculation of only "gusts" up to 80 or 90--lol, in fact it virtually "blows it away."

All that speculation aside; what it clearly shows is that at the very least the gusts were a good 40-50 mph higher than "some" estimates, and this being only 4-5 miles inland and still, as cited, some 20-30 miles from center landfall.

How well did the hotel you stayed at fare out? I saw some pics of it on the internet--albeit pre-Katrina. I only ask this because you mentioned the Hampton--or whatever across from you losing part of its roof.

A2K

[brunota2003]

brovo A2K *claps hands* and the fact that the way everything was, the buildings could of very easily blocked the highest winds, or at least slowed them down...so there is a little upwards error you have to add in to...

[MGC]

You could count on the winds being higher near the beach. The I-10 is a good 5 miles inland and the frictional effects are significant. Plus the anemoneter is too low. Nice data though.....MGC

[Audrey2Katrina]

I think the data is fantastic, if for no other reason than that it should quell some of the discourse that suggested max gusts in the area barely above Cat 1 status. MGC, you and brunoto2003 make valid points; but I simply appreciate data showing what many of us have known all along--and that is that there were wind speeds of a truly appreciable level and certainly higher than sustained that were practically sub Cat 1. It's time for us all to agree that whatever our opinions, this was most decidedly a fierce storm with high winds, and a cataclysmic surge--yes, generated by a monstrous Cat 5 offshore--this I concede completely.

Now I hope to watch ALL of that video... lol... been wanting to for some time

A2K

[jazzfan1247]

137 mph wind gust...would probably equate to somewhere around 95-105 mph sustained using the overland gust ratio. This seems reasonable given the fact that this is assumably 5 or so miles inland, and the anemometer was shorter than the standard 10m height. This recording would probably indicate that strong Cat 2, weak Cat 3 conditions existed right along the beaches imo. Areas west of Gulfport may have gotten slightly higher sustained winds, but due to the broadness of the wind field, probably not much higher. These areas probably got higher gusts though judging from the convective blowups on radar which would've transferred higher gusts to the surface.