Hurricane Camille Anniversary

[Frank2]

Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Hurricane Camille's landfall - as said, it was a hurricane of Biblical proportions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille

[KayFL]

I remember Camille. I traveled through that area a week later and the main highway was nearly gone. I had never seen anything like it - a grey coast guard boat parked between the columns of an old southern mansion on the beach front. I was a teenager, but something I will never forget.

[Frank2]

There hadn't been a hurricane of that intensity since the 1900 and 1935 hurricanes...

Of course that held until Andrew of 1992, so statistically it's interesting to note that this has happened approximately once every 35 years (at least over the past 100 years), though I'm sure there's no scientific reason for why that is so...

P.S. Some might consider the 1926 and 1928 hurricane disasters as well, but they were a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, from what I've read...

[vbhoutex]

I remember Camille. I traveled through that area a week later and the main highway was nearly gone. I had never seen anything like it - a grey coast guard boat parked between the columns of an old southern mansion on the beach front. I was a teenager, but something I will never forget.

I flew over the Southern part of Camille on my way to Houston for orientation. Having gone through Camille effects in Gulf Breeze and P'cola the day and night before I was dead tired, but we were the first flight along the Gulf Coast in 36 hours. Those weren't waves I saw through the clouds, they were mountains!! The next week I traveled to NO by car and had to go way far inland and still the forests were laid over as well as huge steel signs. Then traveling along the coast that I had known for so many years and seeing it totally destroyed and changed forever. A VERY SOBERING EXPERIENCE.

[StormClouds63]

More Camille links here:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/storm_w ... amille.pdf
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/storm_wallets/cdmp/
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/hi ... ml#camille
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/tropical/r ... e1969.html
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/h ... s/camille/
http://www.usace.army.mil/History/Pages/Hurricanes.aspx

Don't know when the NHC/NOAA historical re-analysis project is going tackle Camille. The results will be very interesting. I've read maximum sustained winds reported anywhere from 145-190 mph. Landfall pressure at 909 mb. There is disagreement (at least on this board) whether it was a Cat 5 or not. Saw damage firsthand during Labor Day weekend, 1969. Incredible, to say the least.

[KayFL]

Horrible it was. I have seen hurricane damage since, even in Homestead after Andrew, but none compared to Camille.

My mom owned a house on the beach in Fernandina Beach, FL in the late 60's. When she bought it there was a row of houses on stilts in the sand in front of ours. Over the years those went down in hurricanes, but our little cottage stayed. I remember one hurricane, I don't know the name, but a brand new house being built near ours slid right into the ocean and the last stilt house went down. We were then ocean front.

Even seeing all that was nothing like what I saw after Camille. I have no doubt the damage and surge would make it a cat. 5, and I believe the damage was from wind over 155 mph.

[StormClouds63]

KayFL:

Yes, I think it was Cat 5, too. I've read that the measurements taken by the last recon flight on that Sunday afternoon may have overestimated the winds (190 mph) and underestimated the pressure (901; later corrected to 905 mb). A member of that recon crew stated that they were only trained for conditions up to 150 mph, and this storm far exceeded that threshold. The book on Camille that came out in 2005 (Category 5, by Ernest Zebrowski and Judith Howard) estimated max sustained winds around 170 mph at landfall.

My father was in Japan in 1945-46, and he equated the damage from Waveland to Biloxi as looking like a bombed-out city from the war.

[MGC]

Bill Read is in town today for the ceremony in remerance of Camille's victims. He is speaking at a luncheon. I was planning to make the luncheon but couldn't. I was planning on asking Bill Read his thoughts on Camille.....MGC

[CrazyC83]

I think the lowest pressure was below 900mb at its peak, due to the large spread of sub-910 readings (for like 24 hours), and the 901 and 905 readings were like 12 hours apart. IMO, the 901mb lowest estimate was valid, and even that was not at peak intensity - the peak intensity I believe was 895mb about 6 hours earlier.

The highest flight-level winds measured were 165 kt at 700mb just after the 901mb pressure about 8 hours before landfall, which would support 150 kt at that point. However, since there was a large gap in measurements, I would suspect the peak intensity was 160 kt about 6 hours previous to that.

Landfall is trickier. The pressure is undisputed - 909mb. However, the winds are tough to estimate. The pressure rose 8mb in the last 8 hours, which would typically result in a 5-10 kt decrease in sustained winds. However, it seemed on radar the structure was concentric at the same time, so an eyewall replacement cycle was underway with two concentric eyewalls of about 8 and 25 nautical miles.

My guess for the landfalls: 145 kt when it brushed extreme SE Louisiana (may have remained just offshore) and 135 kt when it hit Mississippi.

[StormClouds63]

CracyC83:
Your estimates of wind speeds at landfall make good sense. I'm sure you've seen the radar photos taken of Camille as it approached landfall. These were either from New Orleans or Pensacola radar. On these images, a double-eye is clearly visible. My guess for estimated winds at MS landfall is about 160 mph ... close to your estimate of about 155 mph. For 30 degrees North latitude, 909 mb pressure and 155-160 mph sustained winds are still incredible.