miamicanes177 wrote: Barry made landfall as a tropical depression. Therefore, we can conclude it must have been tropical.
...The NHC admits in their report that 45kt winds were found 1500 feet off the ground in the southeast quadrant just before landfall. However, they said that portion of the storm did not have deep enough convection and therefore winds were unable to reach the surface according to observations. People who actually experienced it do believe they were in a tropical storm. I'll have to go with the folks on the ground and say 40mph sustained winds existed in some portion of Barry at landfall.
That's not what I am saying. I know they said it was a TD...I read the report. What I was saying was that "a significant drop in pressure and rise in tides... also at my location the winds were sustained for 3-5 minutes above 40 mph with gusts in the 50-60 mph range easily" does not a tropical storm make. Those exact same observations can be made in a NOREASTER...thats what I was saying. In order to determine whether it was a tropical cyclone or not...you have to look at other things....not that. That is what I was saying.
As far as the winds go...experiences are very subjective...and even as a 20 year met who has done this with every instrument imaginable...and is trained and certified to take observations...there have been numerous times when I and/or the entire unit have observed winds (whether tstm winds or non-convective gradient winds) and have over-estimated the wind speed. It is a very rare event that we underestimate. That is why you look at weather obs...and the weather obs from that area show that it was not a TS...which is why the NHC revised it down (something they don't like to do).
So...I don't trust "I believe" because I am professionally trained and certified to do this and so are the people I work with over the last 20 years...and we can't do it without a 10-15% error in estimation. Even if you see it on a weather station you have to ask if the thing is calibrated right...and make sure it's not getting the winds funneled from a certain direction (that could add 20-30% on a wind speed).
Measuring wind speed is an excact science. Eyeballing it...especially when you don't do it for a living will yield about a 20% error (if you are good at it) with speeds in the TS force range. The error rate climbs as your wind speed climbs. Given the lack of convection and the ET nature of the storm...it is highly unlikely you had higher isolated pockets of gusts over 52 knots when the only other professionally or non-profession observed windspeed was 39 kts. That is why I asked for a method. We had this discussion a year or two ago. Eyeballing wind speeds is not possible with any amount of accuracy..especially when our (weather geeks) human tendancy takes over to "want" to experience a TS.
"hey...There is a TS warning out...and that wind looked pretty darn close, it must have ben 40+"
