The Off Soundings race? try being in a race out of the Coast Guard Academy in 12' dinghys and having a boomer cut thru the race! scary - they are hard to see, especially when you're concentrating on the race and your nearby competitors!
Hurricane Michael
- Thread starter Roland5048
- Start date
The marines also had a smaller landing craft that looked a lot like that one. It was called the Weasel. It was not as buoyant.
Yea, you need to keep on your toes. Each storm is it's own variety of animal. When Irma came to visit, a buddy of mine took his boat all the way up to Georgia to "keep it out of harm's way", but that didn't work out for him. That storm was so big that it was in Cuba & Georgia at the same time. This last storm popped up quickly, forming right in our own back yard. It didn't spin over from the African coast & give us a whole lot of time to get ready the way that most of them do.
One of the things that made this one seem worse, was that it hit an area that hadn't been "thinned out" by other strong storms recently. There was a lot of loose debris that was available to be blown around.
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jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,127
The eyewall on the hurricane’s strong side (NE) went right through Mexico Beach. Highest winds (+155mph) and extreme turbulence. The NWS has determined that the eyewall winds are equivalent to a miles long tornado and now provide specific Exteme Wind Warnings for locations where the eyewall travels.
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,127
Looking at the aerial images of the coast, the damage sure looks similar to the tornado damage that occurs in the MidWest, but on a larger scale.
I thinks this demonstrates the inaccuracy of using wind speed as the only measure of how “powerful” a hurricane is. For reference, Katrina made landfall as a Cat 3, yet caused destruction 30+ miles away from “ground zero” similar or greater than Cat 4 Michael at “ground zero”. Perhaps a system which rates wind/surge/size might be more useful.... Katrina a 3/5/5? Michael a 4/2/2?
Well minimum tornado "eye wall" 300+ MPH.
But these are common...
Micro Bursts
And happen in the near eye wall [20-40 miles] of a Hurricane.
They will "explode" structures from their radial bursts.
Jim...
PS: I investigated one such structure post Katrina. The brick home blew the bricks outwardly. First insurance settlement for $1.5MM home = $15,000. Second settlement $1.15MM after proper analysis.
I was taught that was why exterior doors on florida houses open outward not inward, to fail there first with the sudden drop in outside pressure during hurricanes. Not sure that really works though.
-Will (Dragonfly)
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Google NWS Extreme Wind Warning, they’ve been doing them for a few years. They came just after Katrina, realizing that there was little to no difference between the destructive power of winds in the eyewall and those in a tornado. You see that in Mexico Beach. Eyewall, Florida.
The Outward opening exterior door have been the Preferred Hurricane Standard on exterior doors since 1998.
If not, they should be retrofitted with a 3 point locking bolts on the exterior of the door, at least on the Last Exit exterior door. Three bolts on interior side... Head, Foot and Mid bolts.
Sudden opening of a Door by a Gust, will immediately Pressurize the home interior and explode it outwardly.
These Hurricane contruction standards are Nation Wide, but must be adopted locally to be law.
Jim...
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Next time you are in a school, note the exterior escape/exit doors. They have the 3 point locking bolts that are push bar to open quickly for the kids.
Jim...
I was looking at windfinder, right about the time that the eye hit shore. The very high winds were very localized. Not too far away. there wasn't a whole lot of activity showing over 50mph. The storm hit a small area hard & lost energy quickly once it was over land.
There was a lot of talk about that back then, that the categories based solely on wind speed don't cover the full potential of a storm. From my experience, hurricanes intensify rapidly in speed, but slowly in physical size. They seem to peak in winds, but then begin to grow in size to cover more area and the wind speeds reduce. Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all did that in the same year, all hit Cat 5 at some point, then were reduced to 4 and 3, yet the area they covered continued growing. Katrina pushed a nearly 40 foot storm surge into some areas of Mississippi, partially due to the size of the storm, but also due to the geography of the area.
Jamie,
The photos really capture the devastation. However, you can not really appreciate the magnitude of the destruction without seeing it up close in 360* panoramic view. Following Katrina, I saw many photos of the area in which I lived as a kid; when I saw my hometown, up front & personal, three months after the storm, I was literally blown away by extent of the damage. One really becomes disoriented when the landscape is changed so drastically and houses, businesses, and landmarks have completely vanished or have become misplaced.
It's really overwhelming to see first hand.
The photos really capture the devastation. However, you can not really appreciate the magnitude of the destruction without seeing it up close in 360* panoramic view. Following Katrina, I saw many photos of the area in which I lived as a kid; when I saw my hometown, up front & personal, three months after the storm, I was literally blown away by extent of the damage. One really becomes disoriented when the landscape is changed so drastically and houses, businesses, and landmarks have completely vanished or have become misplaced.
It's really overwhelming to see first hand.