THE SECRET HURRICANE

[vbhoutex]

This was mentioned to me by a former member of S2K a while back. I had forgotten about it till I found this. Can anyone else dig up anything on it?

Did you know a secret hurricane once hit Houston?
By The Associated Press
(5/23/03 - HOUSTON) — Imagine a hurricane taking the most direct route into the Gulf Coast's largest city, skirting Bolivar Peninsula, driving through Galveston Bay and virtually right up the Houston Ship Channel and on to downtown.

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Such a storm, which could maintain top strength longer because of its extended stay over water, is a worst-nightmare scenario for Houston-area emergency planners. That is precisely what happened July 27, 1943, except for one more complication: The storm was an official state secret.

"We didn't have satellites and weather maps weren't being made because ships were running silent, because German U-boats were thought to be floating around in the gulf," said Bill Read, chief of the National Weather Service office near Houston.

Read, along with consultant Lew Fincher, researched newspaper clippings and whatever bits of information they could scrounge to compile details of a storm that killed 19 people in the region and did more than $16.6 million in damage at the time.

Their research determined the storm started as a tropical depression off the Louisiana coast July 25, began heading straight for Houston the next day and made landfall at Bolivar on the morning of July 27, then again at Houston that evening after traveling across the bay.

"There is virtually no reference to the storm in records kept at the local Houston NWS office or the former Galveston NWS office," Read and Fincher wrote. "Again, (World War II) era regulations did not permit release of records kept at these offices and we were informed anecdotally that in all likelihood any records taken would have been classified and shipped to Washington."

According to newspapers, Houston's weather service chief at the time downplayed the severity of the approaching storm, and officials didn't realize they had a strengthening hurricane on their hands until it hit lightly populated Bolivar and was hours away from Houston.

"It was mostly after the war that the advisory system we currently use evolved," Read said. "At the time, a 24-hour advisory that people would take action on was very commonplace. It would have different wording, a lot more general."

The eye was over downtown Houston as midnight approached and Metropolitan Airport, now Hobby Airport, registered a wind gust of 132 mph and sustained winds of 85 mph for more than two hours. The worst flooding occurred further east, in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area.

Houston-area refineries, many of which were producing vital aviation fuel for the war effort, were damaged by the Category 2 winds. Humble Oil at Baytown and Shell Oil at Deer Park were among those that temporarily shut down production, nuggets the War Department didn't want the Germans and Japanese learning.

"There was a report that the FBI shut down the telegraph office in La Porte because someone had sent a telegram out of the state informing someone of the damages from the hurricane," Read and Fincher wrote. "The only news of the hurricane was published in the two states that were affected, Texas and Louisiana. After this hurricane, never again were advisories censored from the public."

Read says modern technology has rendered such censorship a moot point.

"Then it made some sense. Now you can't keep this secret anyway," Read said, referring to ubiquitous electronic media and the Internet. "Everyone can see these things."

The 1943 hurricane made history one other way. Col. Joe Duckworth and Lt. Ralph O'Hair, intent on showing visiting British pilots at Bryan Field that the AT-6 "Texan" Trainer was a quality plane, set out July 27 to fly into the eye of the storm.

O'Hair _ who was drafted to fly with Duckworth and was harried by the experience _ described the shape of the center as a leaning cone, with the lower section dragging a bit behind because of friction over land, Read and Fincher reported. It was the first flight directly into a hurricane's eye, a practice that is standard today for monitoring approaching storms.

"That was also the last flight into a hurricane for Lt. O'Hair," according to Read and Fincher.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. all rights reserved.)

[Roxy]

Very interesting read. Thanks!

[fwbbreeze]

check out this link....some good info!!

http://www.hurricaneconsulting.net/home/surprise.htm

fwbbreeze

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

This doe's not surprize me at all. Sounds like a upper cat2 or lower cat3 hurricane.

[HurricaneBill]

Apparently, Weather.Unisys was in on the secret.

[dhweather]

Did they get that data from the Germans?

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I gust of 132 mph? That sounds like you would get at least 115 mph one minute winds. This was no cat1 more likely a weak cat3.

[senorpepr]

I gust of 132 mph? That sounds like you would get at least 115 mph one minute winds. This was no cat1 more likely a weak cat3.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, 132mph gusts would only put it in the upper cat 2 range. About 105 mph, once again, if I'm not mistaken.

[senorpepr]

I gust of 132 mph? That sounds like you would get at least 115 mph one minute winds. This was no cat1 more likely a weak cat3.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, 132mph gusts would only put it in the upper cat 2 range. About 105 mph, once again, if I'm not mistaken.

Not too far off by just guessing... 132 mph (115kt) converts to 109 mph(95kt).

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Like I said upper cat2 or lower cat3.

[senorpepr]

Like I said upper cat2 or lower cat3.

I wasn't disagreeing with you.

[Huckster]

I gust of 132 mph? That sounds like you would get at least 115 mph one minute winds. This was no cat1 more likely a weak cat3.

Once a storm makes landfall, the difference between the sustained wind and the gust speed is often very great, much greater than the difference over water. I think it was Shaw AFB, SC during Hugo that got only 67 mph sustained winds but gusts to 109 mph and Charlotte, NC 69 mph and gusts to 99 mph.

[senorpepr]

I gust of 132 mph? That sounds like you would get at least 115 mph one minute winds. This was no cat1 more likely a weak cat3.

Once a storm makes landfall, the difference between the sustained wind and the gust speed is often very great, much greater than the difference over water. I think it was Shaw AFB, SC during Hugo that got only 67 mph sustained winds but gusts to 109 mph and Charlotte, NC 69 mph and gusts to 99 mph.

True, although elevation makes a big difference: Shaw @ 240' MSL vs Hobby @ 46' MSL. (Granted, that's not all that much of a difference...)

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I would not be at all surprized during this period of history. There was many a hurricane that was never on the charts. In mainly what I mean to say it fish storms.

As for your quastion, a weakening hurricane which has dry air inside of it has a large diffrence from gust to one mintue winds. That is not true with hurricanes like Charley,Andrew,Camille. Which has a core of one minute winds. If this hurricane was weakening then I could see your point. But if it was tighting up like many a hurricane do moving at that angle. Then no.

[senorpepr]

I would not be at all surprized during this period of history. There was many a hurricane that was never on the charts. In mainly what I mean to say it fish storms.

As for your quastion, a weakening hurricane which has dry air inside of it has a large diffrence from gust to one mintue winds. That is not true with hurricanes like Charley,Andrew,Camille. Which has a core of one minute winds. If this hurricane was weakening then I could see your point. But if it was tighting up like many a hurricane do moving at that angle. Then no.

Actually, as a storm makes landfall, the frictional forces from the land, as well as interaction between man-made objects, can create these larger-than-normal spreads between the sustained winds and the gusts. These effects are amplified with higher population (thus more man-made objects to increase microscale channelling), greater difference between land elevation and sea-surface, even synoptic-scale temperatures, humidity, and broadrange atmospheric pressures can alter the difference between the sustained winds and the gusts.

[AussieMark]

Remember the gusts made by Georges in 1998. Georges had sustained winds of 105 mph and some reports said gusts were around 170 mph ish. of course the reliability of that is questionable.