Bay Saint Louis

[TSmith274]

Bay St. Louis... I'm not sure. But a friend of the family, who works for Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. in Boothville, La., told us of the highest gust they recieved. Boothville is about 4 miles south of Buras, La... the point of first landfall. I hesitate to post it b/c most won't believe it. But 211mph was the highest gust recorded at their facility, so I'd imagine that Bay St. Louis got some pretty severe gusts. Was it a malfunction? I doubt it, because EVERYTHING down there is gone... including my vacation home. But, according to another friend, who works at the Naval station at Belle Chasse, La... about 50 miles north of Boothville, reported a high gust of 102mph. So, who knows what the correct numbers are?

[jdray]

My guess would be some smaller tighter wind gradients, similar to the way all hurricanes spawn tornados.

Maybe some of those higher winds were basically tornados forming?

wind fields are always hard to predict.


Back in 2004, Jeanne produced more winds in my close area moreso than others in NE Florida.
NAS Jax had a 51mph sustained, gusts to 64mph.
whereas Gainesville (further inland, closer to the eye path than NAS Jax) had only 44mph/60mph.
Ocala (further south than Gainesville) had but 34.5/51mph.

look at this chart: (halfway down the page)
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2004jeanne.shtml?

Frances produced some of the same wind fields, higher in places farther from the core than one would think.
We even had a tornado form over our house. My garage door with hurricane bar still bent the bar a little, so no telling exactly how high it was. (wish I had a weather station for that one)

[Jim Cantore]

There may have been tornadoes that nobody reported to cause these higher gusts, it is hard to see a tornado threw blinding rain and 120mph winds

[terstorm1012]

Iam not trying to start an argument but do you remember the pics of the menhaden or "pogie" boats on the Empire bridge? My cousin rode the storm out on one of them he said 175 gusting over 200. All I know is this, she was worse than Camille

And the saga continues... and continues... and continues...

Rat, just be careful where you want to go with this as it will most probably bring extreme debate - on both sides of the issue.

Anybody got any popcorn!!

Buttered? or unbuttered?

Doctor says I need to watch my salt...

[thunderchief]

So, who knows what the correct numbers are?

this is so true. Most instruments fail for a variety of reasons. 1) The instrument itself is destroyed. 2) wind driven rain seeps in and shorts out something(thats what happened to mine in Jeanne). 3) The instrument does not have a battery backup. 4) The internet connection to the instrument is taken out and the instrument pack is not recovered.

even those anemometers that do make it are far apart and they are not calibrated for high speed winds with tons of rain. The best instruments for high speed measurement are pitot tubes, rather than the cup type which is widely used.

[Pearl River]

Yes, Mayor Ben Morris has been reporting those wind speeds from the NWS and they are posted on the city's web site. Supposedly the Weather Service has modified it's wind speed report from the 176/190. But guess what? No one is reporting what those wind speeds were either, not even the NWS.

I know Texas Tech had a tower out at the Slidell Airport and their wind speeds were sustained 1 minute 61 kts and peak gust 87 kts, but there tower was also bent about 5 to 10 degrees.