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
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you can still see the blog if your banned just clear your cookies and don't sign in. i did it the last time i was banned.
I know, but I hate reading it if I can't comment.
Howdy, okie and welcome!
I can remember exactly where I was when I heard...
No question is to silly when i comes to weather.
Hey Flodman
One additional though on this...
Lightning creates NOx (any process that substantially heats the air does). So this leads to an assumption that the increase in lightning is also partly responsible for an increase in NOx and, thus, surface-level ozone, too.
Both NOx and ozone are very effective GHGs. But, I am prolly making out the contribution of lightning-created NOx to be more significant than it really is...
(Aside: Mother nature does create some of the surface ozone. NOx from lightning, isoprenes or terpenes from oaks or pines, respectively. Mix with sunlight, and you have ozone.)
So far, it seems the UHI-convection effect is minimal to nonexistent for small to mid-size cities.
I was 5 years old. I remember seeing it happen.
I actually say it blow up from Orlando, FL.
According to press facebook - " I will be a guest Thursday Jan. 28 discussing Portlight's Haiti relief efforts for people with disabilities there..."
WBAI, New York - 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio - Home
www.wbai.org
WBAI 99.5 FM, Pacifica Radio in NYC
Think I remember him saying tonight or tomorrow for the NBC interview.
Our teacher told us it was fireworks and that the shuttle would take off later. I guess she wanted to shield us from the truth.
Yup, I was 5 years old too and remember asking my father what were the pieces and the big fire ball or smoke ball coming off the challenger.
I was in my high school chemistry class when the school's chaplain (I went to Catholic HS) made the announcement and said a prayer.
Didn't actually see it until I got home that night...
Aussie! How are you doing?
I remember seeing it on the news, was in shock
Really.
I was in third grade at a catholic school.
They brought a TV into the classroom and we just watched the news most of the day...and of course talked about it a bit. They didn't shy away from it at all.
Just found it on Portlight blog.
"53. presslord 9:16 PM CST on January 26, 2010
OK...we're doing a major follow up Thursday AM with NBC Nightly News...first segment should run Thurs or Fri nite...second segment sometime next week"
Well, we were 5 year olds and watching it as it happened.
LOL Well, actually that would be a new one. Amy coined the handle dashboardcowMan. :)
I respond to most anything (easily amused)
South Florida StormWatch
(main site)
St. Petersburg, FL.
Fair
59 °F
Humidity: 60 %
Wind Speed: NE 7 MPH
Barometer: 30.32" (1026.7 mb)
Dewpoint: 45 °F (7 °C)
Visibility: 10.00 mi.
"I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here's the thing -- even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation."
Dr. N-G was actually one of my Meteorology professors last semester and shared that report with us during one of our lectures. It really was quite interesting.
Doing well mate! well i was until i just started to get stomach cramps and i don't know why. I'll be listening to the barometer bob show
tomorrow afternoon(12pm)for your update on the Portlight Haiti quake effort.
I'm glad you brough that up; Paul is at the Atlanta location right now, helping to get a shipment of medical supplies out to Haiti. With him are a camera crew from NBC Nightly News. We're not sure when the segment will air,but we're thinking it will air tonight; there will be a second segment that will air sometime next week.
If thesegment from today doesn't air tonight then most liklely you will see Paul tomorrow night...
Now for the pitch, kids:
Portlight serves the disabled community in areas stricken by disasters. We supply durable medical equipment, clinical supplies, food and water to the disabled survivors of disasters here in the United States and abroad. We need further donations of medical supplies and money to help with the cost of shipping these goods to Haiti. You can help! Go to Portlight for more information!
Thanks
I'm glad you brought that up; I will be on, talking about our efforts so far...in the US, Barometer Bob airs tonight at 8PM EST (7 CST). I will not be his first guest, but I will be on
Hope you guys listen in!
Email:
Who: NCEP/NWSTG/NCF/NWS Southern and Eastern Regions
When: 14Z Thu Jan 28 2010 - 12Z Sun Jan 31 2010
A Regional Critical Weather Day (CWD) has been declared from 14Z (9 AM EST) Thu Jan 28 2010 through 12Z (7 AM EST) Sun Jan 31 2010. NCEP...
NWSTG...NCF...NWS Eastern/Southern Regions will participate in this CWD to ensure a reliable flow of data. The CWD is in effect because a significant winter storm is forecast to impact the Southern US and Southern portions of the Mid-Atlantic states over the next 48 hours. In addition...there is a threat of heavy rainfall over the Southern MS Valley.
Also, users can get an updated CWD status on the NCEP WEB page:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/cwd/
I'll be listening and will also be in storm chat.
Yeah he is, I just talked to him on the phone. A couple friends and I are coming down there tomorrow and saturday to bring some clothes down
yeah, it is going to get nasty in a hurry
Who is he? I probably do
You college kids will do anything for a road trip. LOL
:p it's for a great cause
Yep, I know him, nice guy for sure!
I couldn't agree more.
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