New World Wind Gust Record Set

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New World Wind Gust Record Set

#1 Postby HURAKAN » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:54 am

New World Wind Gust Record Set

January 22, 2010 - After a recent review conducted by a panel in charge of global weather and climate extremes within the World Meteorological Organization Commission of Climatology (CCI), there is a new world record for maximum wind gust not related to tornadoes. The new record is 253.5 mph achieved during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on April 10, 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia. The previous record was 231 mph at Mount Washington, New Hampshire on April 12, 1934.

The panel of experts (Dr. Pierre Bessemoulin, MeteoFrance and President of CCl; Dr. Tom Peterson, NOAA National Climatic Data Center; Dr. Blair Trewin, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Dr. Jose M. Rubiera Torres, Cuban Instituto de Meteorología; Dr. John (Jack) Beven, USA National Hurricane Center; Dr. John King, British Antarctic Survey; Dr. Randy Cerveny, Arizona State University and CCl Rapporteur of Climate Extremes) came to the conclusion after an extensive review and evaluation of instrumental and statistical data.


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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#2 Postby Ptarmigan » Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:43 pm

I read about this. It was not really well known. At first, it was declared unofficial. 254 mph is a tornado. Not something to laugh at. Now, I wonder if any hurricane has produced wind gust this great? It would not surprise me. :eek: :eek:
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#3 Postby MGC » Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:10 am

According to the article, the measurment was made in a mesovortex imbedded in the eyewall. Gotta watch those mesovortexes, that is what tore up south Florida during Andrew......MGC
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#4 Postby Derek Ortt » Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:56 am

Ptarmigan wrote:I read about this. It was not really well known. At first, it was declared unofficial. 254 mph is a tornado. Not something to laugh at. Now, I wonder if any hurricane has produced wind gust this great? It would not surprise me. :eek: :eek:


254 may actually be an EF6 tornado as I believe EF5 range tops out at about 230 ish... I may be mistaken though
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#5 Postby CrazyC83 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:16 pm

Derek Ortt wrote:
Ptarmigan wrote:I read about this. It was not really well known. At first, it was declared unofficial. 254 mph is a tornado. Not something to laugh at. Now, I wonder if any hurricane has produced wind gust this great? It would not surprise me. :eek: :eek:


254 may actually be an EF6 tornado as I believe EF5 range tops out at about 230 ish... I may be mistaken though


EF5 has no upper limit, unlike F5 in the old Fujita scale. I agree that was probably a mesovortex not representative of the official intensity, unless a high sustained wind figure can be obtained. The sustained winds were probably about 140-150 kt (160-175 mph) at that time based on the looks of the storm.
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#6 Postby Ptarmigan » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:13 pm

CrazyC83 wrote:
EF5 has no upper limit, unlike F5 in the old Fujita scale. I agree that was probably a mesovortex not representative of the official intensity, unless a high sustained wind figure can be obtained. The sustained winds were probably about 140-150 kt (160-175 mph) at that time based on the looks of the storm.


It is very probable a mesovortex was involved.
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#7 Postby HURAKAN » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:25 pm

I agree with you guys that it was most likely a mesovortex or microburst. The image at the beginning of the article shows the storm at its peak, which is no cat. 5.
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#8 Postby CrazyC83 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:49 pm

If it was representative of the actual intensity, typically gusts to 220 kt would translate into a storm intensity of at least 175 kt, and I am not aware of any storm with such a high intensity.
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#9 Postby HurricaneBill » Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:37 pm

Olivia peaked as a Category 5 on the Australian scale and a Category 4 on the SS scale. Olivia had peak 1-min sustained winds of 125KT.
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#10 Postby StormingB81 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:42 pm

I don't think anything could withstand 254 mph winds!
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#11 Postby HURAKAN » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:51 pm

HurricaneBill wrote:Olivia peaked as a Category 5 on the Australian scale and a Category 4 on the SS scale. Olivia had peak 1-min sustained winds of 125KT.


Peaked as a Cat 4 in the Australian Scale.

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Link - http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/wa/cyclon ... ivia.shtml
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#12 Postby HURAKAN » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:52 pm

Link to the WMO report - http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/in ... 58_en.html

I would have liked an explanation on the condition of the anemometer and how they came to this conclusion.
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#13 Postby MGC » Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:50 pm

Too bad instruments in the USA can't stand up to this wind. Debris strikes take most of them out during hurricanes. The anemometer on the courthouse in Gulfport was missing a cup after Katrina, likely from debris impact.....MGC
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#14 Postby HurricaneBill » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:47 am

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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#15 Postby Blown Away » Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:52 pm

Wow, 253 mph that would have been amazing to see if you could watch it w/o being blown away. Can the pressures get low enough in the Atlantic to produce that kind of wind?
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#16 Postby HurricaneBill » Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:08 pm

Blown_away wrote:Wow, 253 mph that would have been amazing to see if you could watch it w/o being blown away. Can the pressures get low enough in the Atlantic to produce that kind of wind?


Wilma may have been able to.
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#17 Postby Ptarmigan » Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:08 pm

Blown_away wrote:Wow, 253 mph that would have been amazing to see if you could watch it w/o being blown away. Can the pressures get low enough in the Atlantic to produce that kind of wind?


It would depend on the size and central pressure.
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#18 Postby Derek Ortt » Sat Jan 30, 2010 7:41 pm

Gustav also had that very high wind gust in the EF5 range and it was "only" a cat 4.

May have been a miniswirl. We may now have an idea as to what Homestead experienced and why it suffered damage (hint... not the construction as I have long said)
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Re:

#19 Postby Ptarmigan » Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:26 pm

Derek Ortt wrote:Gustav also had that very high wind gust in the EF5 range and it was "only" a cat 4.

May have been a miniswirl. We may now have an idea as to what Homestead experienced and why it suffered damage (hint... not the construction as I have long said)


I read in a 1993 National Geographic magazine about how vortices spawned by Andrew did most of the damage.
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Re: New World Wind Gust Record Set

#20 Postby Aslkahuna » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:26 pm

There was a paper published in 1999 on a study conducted of the observational records of this event and they concluded from all the information they had that indeed the peak winds occurred both in the portion of the eyewall where mesovortices would occur and that other parameters pointed towards their existence. Should be noted as it has been before that pressure alone does not determine the wind intensity but rather the pressure gradient and remember that Gustav produced a 200+ mph gust in Cuba so it's possible in the ATL. Finally, ASOS has two problems-the first is that it's easily taken out by flying debris (and not the wind alone) and secondly there is no battery and data storage backup so when power goes so goes the data from ASOS until this problem is resolved there will never be a chance of getting decent wind records during hurricanes in the US. If a Davis anemometer can survive 170 mph gusts (during Andrew as documented) then surely ASOS is robust enough to do better.

Steve
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