A new world record wind gust: 253 mph in Australia's Tropical Cyclone Olivia
The 6,288-foot peak of New Hampshire's Mount Washington is a forbidding landscape of wind-swept barren rock, home to some of planet Earth's fiercest winds. As a 5-year old boy, I remember being blown over by a terrific gust of wind on the summit, and rolling out of control towards a dangerous drop-off before a fortuitously-placed rock saved me. Perusing the Guinness Book of World Records as a kid, three iconic world weather records always held a particular mystique and fascination for me: the incredible 136°F (57.8°C) at El Azizia, Libya in 1922, the -128.5°F (-89.2°C) at the "Pole of Cold" in Vostok, Antarctica in 1983, and the amazing 231 mph wind gust (103.3 m/s) recorded in 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Well, the legendary winds of Mount Washington have to take second place now, next to the tropical waters of northwest Australia. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that the new world wind speed record at the surface is a 253 mph (113.2 m/s) wind gust measured on Barrow Island, Australia. The gust occurred on April 10, 1996, during passage of the eyewall of Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Olivia.
Figure 1. Instruments coated with rime ice on the summit of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. Image credit: Mike Theiss.
Tropical Cyclone Olivia
Tropical Cyclone Olivia was a Category 4 storm on the U.S. Saffir-Simpson scale, and generated sustained winds of 145 mph (1-minute average) as it crossed over Barrow Island off the northwest coast of Australia on April 10, 1996. Olivia had a central pressure of 927 mb and an eye 45 miles in diameter at the time, and generated waves 21 meters (69 feet) high offshore. According to Black et al. (1999), the eyewall likely had a tornado-scale mesovortex embedded in it that caused the extreme wind gust of 253 mph. The gust was measured at the standard measuring height of 10 meters above ground, on ground at an elevation of 64 meters (210 feet). A similar mesovortex was encountered by a Hurricane Hunter aircraft in Hurricane Hugo of 1989, and a mesovortex was also believed to be responsible for the 239 mph wind gust measured at 1400 meters by a dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel in 2003. For reference, 200 mph is the threshold for the strongest category of tornado, the EF-5, and any gusts of this strength are capable of causing catastrophic damage.
Figure 2. Visible satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Olivia a few hours before it crossed Barrow Island, Australia, setting a new world-record wind gust of 253 mph. Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency.
Figure 3. Wind trace taken at Barrow Island, Australia during Tropical Cyclone Olivia. Image credit: Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Why did it take so long for the new record to be announced?
The instrument used to take the world record wind gust was funded by a private company, Chevron, and Chevron's data was not made available to forecasters at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) during the storm. After the storm, the tropical cyclone experts at BOM were made aware of the data, but it was viewed as suspect, since the gusts were so extreme and the data was taken with equipment of unknown accuracy. Hence, the observations were not included in the post-storm report. Steve Buchan from RPS MetOcean believed in the accuracy of the observations, and coauthored a paper on the record gust, presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston (Buchan et al., 1999). The data lay dormant until 2009, when Joe Courtney of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was made aware of it. Courtney wrote up a report, coauthored with Steve Buchan, and presented this to the WMO extremes committee for ratification. The report has not been made public yet, and is awaiting approval by Chevron. The verified data will be released next month at a World Meteorological Organization meeting in Turkey, when the new world wind record will become official.
New Hampshire residents are not happy
Residents of New Hampshire are understandably not too happy about losing their cherished claim to fame. The current home page of the Mount Washington Observatory reads, "For once, the big news on Mount Washington isn't our extreme weather. Sadly, it's about how our extreme weather--our world record wind speed, to be exact--was outdone by that of a warm, tropical island".
Comparison with other wind records
Top wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 239 mph (107 m/s) at an altitude of 1400 meters, measured by dropsonde in Hurricane Isabel (2003).
Top surface wind in an Atlantic hurricane: 211 mph (94.4 m/s), Hurricane Gustav, Paso Real de San Diego meteorological station in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on the afternoon of August 30, 2008.
Top wind in a tornado: 302 mph (135 m/s), measured via Doppler radar at an altitude of 100 meters (330 feet), in the Bridge Creek, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999.
Top surface wind not associated with a tropical cyclone or tornado: 231 mph (103.3 m/s), April 12, 1934 on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
Top wind in a typhoon: 191 mph (85.4 m/s) on Taiwanese Island of Lanya, Super Typhoon Ryan, Sep 22, 1995; also on island of Miyakojima, Super Typhoon Cora, Sep 5, 1966.
Top surface wind not measured on a mountain or in a tropical cyclone: 207 mph (92.5 m/s) measured in Greenland at Thule Air Force Base on March 6, 1972.
Top wind measured in a U.S. hurricane: 186 mph (83.1 m/s) measured at Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts, during the 1938 New England Hurricane.
References
Buchan, S.J., P.G. Black, and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Australia's Northwest Shelf", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Black, P.G., Buchan, S.J., and R.L. Cohen, 1999, "The Tropical Cyclone Eyewall Mesovortex: A Physical Mechanism Explaining Extreme Peak Gust Occurrence in TC Olivia, 4 April 1996 on Barrow Island, Australia", paper presented at the 1999 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, 3-6 May, 1999.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 — Blog Index
If we're talking about GOES O, that would be 15, yes?
Double Indemnity
Posted on Sep 22, 2009 11:48:54 AM | Wayne Hale | 6 Comments
Commercial human space flight is in its infancy. It has been suggested that NASA could do much to encourage or enable the fledgling industry. Supporters cite the historical analogy of US government contracts for air mail delivery in the 1920s as a model for how to kick start the industry. A rosy hued and much abbreviated history of that era suggests that once the government started contract airmail service, modern aviation as we know it inevitably and quickly followed.
It may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of a slightly more detailed version of history.
The US Post Office Department started scheduled airmail service while the Great War was still raging in May 1918. Government aircraft and government pilots delivered air mail in aircraft that were built to detailed government specifications for the next eight years. Twelve government pilots were killed in the first two years of this service. The US Post Office added regularly scheduled transcontinental airmail service in 1920, again with government owned aircraft and government pilots. Following the Kelly Air Mail Act of 1925, the first commercial contract air mail operations started. These were mostly flown by small start-up airlines which were frequently under-capitalized using old government surplus aircraft. By late 1926 all air mail delivery was turned over to these contracts and the government service was discontinued. Fatal accidents were still common among air mail pilots. To an even greater extent than today, the government to industry revolving door phenomenon was present in those days. In 1934 the great air mail scandal erupted. There were charges that government officials had colluded with industry officials (some of whom were former government officials) to fraudulently award air mail contracts to favored companies. FDR cancelled all commercial air mail contracts and called on the US Army Air Service to deliver the mail. Inexperienced military pilots and bad weather resulted in twelve pilot deaths in less than a month. WWI aviation hero Eddie Rickenbacker called the Army Air Service program legalized murder. Within a few months, Congress passed new air mail legislation and a more closely regulated commercial air mail service was restarted. Among the features of the legislation was the provision that banned all former airline executives from further contracts. All the old air line companies were reorganized. Air mail contracts were much less lucrative and the nascent airline companies had to rely increasingly on passenger fares rather than air mail revenues to make their operations profitable. Air craft accidents continued to be frequent and in 1938 the Civil Aviation Administration was formed. The CAA started an era of tight regulations reigned over the air line industry which continued for nearly forty years.
Is this the model that people have in mind for commercial space transportation?
Of course, a paragraph or two doesnt do justice to the rich and complex history of aviation in the 1920s and 1930s. Go read the biography of Dutch Kindelberger, for example. Some airlines, like Pan Am, became profitable carrying passengers without the subsidy of air mail. The transportation of equipment and goods for purely commercial reasons apart from government contracts was a significant business. Air races stimulated technical advances. And what happened in the USA was only part of the story as airlines sprang up crossing the globe from Europe to Africa or Australia or South America. It wasnt just the air mail contracts that spurred aviation in its golden years.
Changing focus slightly, it is often noted that the Air Force does not build its own airplane; the Army does not build its own tanks, why should NASA build its own spacecraft?
NASA, of course, does not build human spacecraft. Never has. Commercial companies have built all human spacecraft and their launch vehicles. McDonnell built Mercury and Gemini, North American Aviation and Grumman built the Apollo CSM and LM respectively. Chrysler built the Redstone rocket and the first stage of the Saturn 1B launch vehicle, and so forth. The renamed North American Rockwell built the Space Shuttle orbiter. When I became NASA's Shuttle Program Manager, I was surprised to find that the detailed design and production drawings for the Space Shuttle orbiter were the intellectual property of Rockwell International Space Division which has since become part of Boeing. The government, while definitely involved with the design, did not do the detailed part of the design and does not own the intellectual property for the shuttle. Many boxes and piece parts remain proprietary and not under the detailed purview of the government. That seems commercial at some level, doesnt it?
Thinking more about the military services, a recent speaker at NASA was from the Navy ship bureau in charge of building aircraft carriers. The Navy doesnt build aircraft carriers, a commercial company does that; but the Navy is intimately involved in the detailed design of every part of a new aircraft carrier. And the Air Force is intimately involved in the design of new jet fighters like the F-22 and the F-35. Sometimes this backfires on a company; ask about the presidential helicopter program. There is a real lesson there.
So what is being proposed for commercial human spacecraft for government use? A contract that merely asks a provider to transport our 4-ish person ISS crew from some place on the earth's surface to the ISS for a fee? No other questions asked? Somehow I think that is not really what is going to happen. Even the airlines and aircraft builders have to pass FAA certification for flight worthiness. So if the government contracts for transportation service there is going to be some government involvement. Oh, and dont even ask about federal procurement regulations. Remember the 1934 air mail scandal? There are a slew of laws and regulations intended to prevent something like that from happening again.
So the real question is how much or how little the government will be involved in the design/certification/operation of commercially contracted human space vehicles. Neither the current model of intimate and controlling design authority nor a totally hands off approach is realistic.
Like almost all of life, there is going to be a compromise. The devil is in the details. It seems to me that we need to spend a serious amount of thought and discussion on how best to do this. Far more than a couple of paragraphs in an essay or a report.
Indemnification. I have heard a lot about that word lately. Had to look it up. Currently the US government indemnifies the companies that build and operate our current space vehicles. If they crash, the government, not the companies, is held liable. That is not the way the airlines work; if an airliner crashes, the airline company or sometimes the aircraft manufacturer are held responsibility and are subject to civil legal action. Some of the putative commercial human space flight providers want the government to indemnify them, take the responsibility if they crash. The original airmail contracts didnt do that in 1925.
Seems like we have a lot to think about as we move commercial human space flight.
We might even learn from history.
Another thought:
Well, aren't we trying to put a scatterometer on their next polar-orbiting weather satellite? They are not going to add in the comms for that instrument for payments in bowls of gumbo. Pretty sure we are already paying in something to Japanese...
Then what's the difference between now with contractors & what is purposed "funding for private companies"..
I got that the other day as well
Yeh,I got that too,sounds like too many people logged into this site,maxing out the capacity.
No, GOES-O became GOES 14. I think we lost one on the launch pad, at some point, thus O is not the 14th letter.
GOES-P, assuming it goes up next, as planned, will become GOES 15.
That is interesting, as I'd always heard that the number would be much higher; is there anything by way of studies/data that corroborate these findings?
That's what i was thinking..that was the beginning of outsourcing for that.. just didn't dawn on me til today..with people concerned we'll out source this too, the initial thought..no it's like contractors but who knows, it's already begun. Wonder how the meeting up at KSC went..
The frozen series was pretty cool, yep even a pic of the fog.
Ok, that makes sense, but it was my understanding that as soon as it goes live, it comes under the control of NOAA
Not that I have seen. There is more at the link (now fixed), including info about where more info is published, but only about this study.
I think the article misses the fact that a burned/slashed forest means a lost carbon sink.
Than you need to remind yourself how long it takes to grow a healthy ecosystem - around 100.000 years.
(See also PETM event and timespan which corelates with the growth of those diverse ecosystems.)
Thus a lost carbon sink, influences in local/global margins the weather patterns - climate aswell. Hence failed systems contribute to the acceleration of climate changes.
Yeah. NASA in control from delivery of satellite to orbit...but I am fairly sure NOAA, though a contractor, builds it.
The numbering isn't as clean as I made it out to be. Very neat paper about the history of NOAA satellites here: http://www.osd.noaa.gov/download/JRS012504-GD.pdf
And says that "NOAA-B" was the victim of a launch failure in 1980.
I'm seeing 49ms from north Texas...not too bad
Im in florida 7mb, not slow here
So you're saying it takes 100,000 years to regrow a forest? Just seeking a little clarity...
okay, as Stacey Keach says, the cause of the explosion was 17' long crack in one of the boosters...ummm, a 17' crack? No one saw this this? LOL
Serious need for training: "Cracks? Yes, cracks are bad; they should be reported immediately...but only if they are 18' or better"
Go to run, type in CMD, hit okay. At the DOS prompt you should be able to type "ping www.wunderground.com" (without the quotes) and in a few seconds you should see that 4 packets were sent and each will have a similar but slightly different return time. The average for here was 49ms. 100mbps is your rating on the network connection
I don't think he read the link.
It specifically says:
"Most of the immediate carbon emissions are not even from the trees but rather the brush, leaf litter and debris on the forest floor, and even below ground," Law said. "In the past we often did not assess the effects of fire on trees or carbon dynamics very accurately."
Even when a very severe fire kills almost all of the trees in a patch, the scientists said, the trees are still standing and only drop to the forest floor, decay, and release their carbon content very slowly over several decades. Grasses and shrubs quickly grow back after high-severity fires, offsetting some of the carbon release from the dead and decaying trees. And across most of these Metolius burned areas, the researchers observed generally abundant tree regeneration that will result in a relatively fast recovery of carbon uptake and storage.
"A severe fire does turn a forest from a carbon sink into an atmospheric carbon source in the near-term," Law said. "It might take 20-30 years in eastern Oregon, where trees grow and decay more slowly, for the forest to begin absorbing more carbon than it gives off, and 5-10 years on the west side of the Cascades."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-01/osu-eof012710.php
We are all talking about a forest fire in the wilderness, right? (as opposed to clearing for farmland or mining operations)
I do it, but it closes before I can see it
Reading further:
Oh yeah! GOES-G in '86. Was supposed to be GOES-7, but GOES-H took that number. How I forget things, lately...
Another launch pad failure.
I dunno.
My T-1 is great for uploads, but notsofast for much else. 400+ms pings for wundergound, google, and weather.gov
You're working out of an educational institution, typically slower connection speeds
Working off triple T-1s here, with one for phone...pretty good throughput, up AND down
54 Mbps currently
Signal Strength EXCELLENT
yeah, there are approximately 1,100 in my dorm building
later guys!
Looking for some snow, are we?
I wish we could get the other tenants in our building to along with re-enabling one of the OC-48s. We have 2. (Ex-DoD satellite comms building)
That would be nice. ~2.5 Gbits/sec...though my real speed would be dictated by what is at the other end of the internet, wherever I may be.
I am told that myspace only has one.
Try a tracert and see where your signal has to go to get here...
Mine reveals this:
Tracing route to www.wunderground.com [38.102.136.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 66.193.244.82
2 8 ms 8 ms 154 ms 74-202-42-45.static.twtelecom.net [74.202.42.45]
3 48 ms 47 ms 48 ms 66.192.251.170
4 64 ms 49 ms 48 ms xe-4-1-0.er1.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.27.90]
5 166 ms 209 ms 119 ms xe-0-1-0.mpr1.sfo7.us.above.net [64.125.26.57]
6 419 ms 158 ms 247 ms 64.124.65.86
7 49 ms 49 ms 56 ms 38.102.136.100
8 49 ms 49 ms 49 ms 38.102.136.104
Trace complete.
got a few heavy pings in there, so there is something going on somewhere, but I get there in 8 hops; you may be seeing as many as 30
C:\>tracert www.wunderground.com
Tracing route to www.wunderground.com [38.102.136.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 10 ms 9 ms 8 ms 10.16.128.1
3 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms ip68-1-11-1.at.at.cox.net [68.1.11.1]
4 33 ms 8 ms 6 ms 68.1.10.222
5 32 ms 29 ms 30 ms maribbpj01-ae0.0.r2.at.cox.net [68.1.0.41]
6 97 ms 94 ms 94 ms te-1-4.bmf1.sjc1.wbsconnect.com [208.81.84.38]
7 104 ms 133 ms 98 ms 98.124.130.206
8 101 ms 96 ms 97 ms 38.102.136.100
9 100 ms 98 ms 194 ms 38.102.136.104
Trace complete.
C:\>
Well, you are also limited by the local network; if you're hard wired to standard cabling then you;re likely never going to see more than about 80mbps in bound, given line noise and other users on your network...if you have gigabit wiring, more like 350mbps...if you;re wirless, you;re likel;y going to be stuck at 48 true
Tracing route to www.wunderground.com [38.102.136.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 2 ms 1 ms 12.107.57.193
2 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 12.87.148.193
3 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms cr2.hs1tx.ip.att.net [12.123.212.214]
4 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms cr1.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.28.157]
5 17 ms 16 ms 16 ms ggr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.139.197]
6 17 ms 17 ms 17 ms 192.205.36.14
7 17 ms 17 ms 18 ms xe-1-0-0.er1.dfw2.us.above.net [64.125.27.77]
8 23 ms 51 ms 23 ms xe-1-2-0.er1.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.30.57]
9 50 ms 106 ms 50 ms xe-1-3-0.er1.lax9.us.above.net [64.125.26.122]
10 61 ms 62 ms 61 ms xe-4-2-0.er1.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.24.18]
11 61 ms 61 ms 61 ms xe-0-1-0.mpr1.sfo7.us.above.net [64.125.26.57]
12 61 ms 61 ms 62 ms 64.124.65.86
13 61 ms 64 ms 61 ms 38.102.136.100
14 82 ms 61 ms 61 ms 38.102.136.104
Trace complete.
Viewing: 151 - 201
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 — Blog Index