Did Hurricane Wilma have 209 mph sustained winds?
At last week's 30th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Eric Uhlhorn of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division presented a poster that looked at the relationship between surface winds measured by the SFMR instrument and flight-level winds in two Category 5 storms. Hurricane Hunter flights done into Category 5 Supertyphoon Megi (17 October 2010) and Category 5 Hurricane Felix (03 September 2007) found that the surface winds measured by SFMR were greater than those measured at flight level (10,000 feet.) Usually, surface winds in a hurricane are 10 - 15% less than at 10,000 feet, but he showed that in super-intense Category 5 storms with small eyes, the dynamics of these situations may generate surface winds that are as strong or stronger than those found at 10,000 feet. He extrapolated this statistical relationship (using the inertial stability measured at flight level) to Hurricane Wilma of 2005, which was the strongest hurricane on record (882 mb), but was not observed by the SFMR. He estimated that the maximum wind averaged around the eyewall in Wilma at peak intensity could have been 209 mph, plus or minus 20 mph--so conceivably as high as 229 mph, with gusts to 270 mph. Yowza. That's well in excess of the 200 mph minimum wind speed a top end EF-5 tornado has. The Joplin, Missouri EF-5 tornado of May 22, 2011 had winds estimated at 225 - 250 mph. That tornado ripped pavement from the ground, leveled buildings to the concrete slabs they were built on, and killed 161 people. It's not a pretty thought to consider what Wilma would have done to Cancun, Key West, or Fort Myers had the hurricane hit with sustained winds of what the Joplin tornado had.
Figure 1. Hurricane Wilma's pinhole eye as seen at 8:22 a.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005, by the crew aboard NASA's international space station as the complex flew 222 miles above the storm. At the time, Wilma was the strongest Atlantic hurricane in history, with a central pressure of 882 mb and sustained surface winds estimated at 185 mph. The storm was located in the Caribbean Sea, 340 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico. Image source: NASA's Space Photo Gallery.
Figure 2. Damage in Joplin, Missouri after the EF-5 tornado of May 22, 2011. Image credit: wunderphotographer thebige.
Official all-time strongest winds in an Atlantic hurricane: 190 mph
The official record for strongest winds in an Atlantic hurricane is 190 mph, for Hurricane Allen of 1980 as it was entering the Gulf of Mexico, and for Hurricane Camille of 1969, as it was making landfall in Pass Christian, Mississippi. In Dr. Bob Sheets' and Jack Williams' book, Hurricane Watch, they recount the Hurricane Hunters flight into Camile as the hurricane reached peak intensity: On Sunday afternoon, August 17, and Air Force C-130 piloted by Marvin Little penetrated Camille's eye and measured a pressure of 26.62 inches of mercury. "Just as we were nearing the eyewall cloud we suddenly broke into a clear area and could see the sea surface below," the copilot, Robert Lee Clark, wrote in 1982. "What a sight! Although everyone on the crew was experienced except me, no one had seen the wind whip the sea like that before...Instead of the green and white splotches normally found in a storm, the sea surface was in deep furrows running along the wind direction....The velocity was beyond the descriptions used in our training and far beyond anything we had ever seen." So, the 190 mph winds of Camille were an estimate that was off the scale from anything that had ever been observed in the past. The books that the Hurricane Hunters carried, filled with photos of the sea state at various wind speeds, only goes up to 150 mph (Figure 2). I still used this book to estimate surface winds when I flew with the Hurricane Hunters in the late 1980s, and the books are still carried on the planes today. In the two Category 5 hurricanes I flew into, Hugo and Gilbert, I never observed the furrowing effect referred to above. Gilbert had surface winds estimated at 175 mph based on what we measured at flight level, so I believe the 190 mph wind estimate in Camille may be reasonable.
Figure 3. Appearance of the sea surface in winds of 130 knots (150 mph). Image credit: Wind Estimations from Aerial Observations of Sea Conditions (1954), by Charlie Neumann.
Figure 4. Radar image of Hurricane Camille taken at 22:15 UTC August 17, 1969, a few hours before landfall in Mississippi. At the time, Camille had the highest sustained winds of any Atlantic hurricane in history--190 mph.
The infamous hurricane hunter flight into Wilma during its rapid intensification
While I was at last week's conference, I had a conversation with Rich Henning, a flight meteorologist for NOAA's Hurricane Hunters, who served for many years as a Air Reconnaissance Weather Officer (ARWO) for the Air Force Hurricane Hunters. Rich told me the story of the Air Force Hurricane Hunter mission into Hurricane Wilma in the early morning hours of October 19, 2005, as Wilma entered its explosive deepening phase. The previous airplane, which had departed Category 1 Wilma six hours previously, flew through Wilma at an altitude of 5,000 feet. They measured a central pressure of 954 mb when they departed the eye at 23:10 UTC. The crew of the new plane assumed that the hurricane, though intensifying, was probably not a major hurricane, and decided that they would also go in at 5,000 feet. Winds outside the eyewall were less than hurricane force, so this seemed like a reasonable assumption. Once the airplane hit the eyewall, they realized their mistake. Flight level winds quickly rose to 186 mph, far in excess of Category 5 strength, and severe turbulence rocked the aircraft. The aircraft was keeping a constant pressure altitude to maintain their height above the ocean during the penetration, but the area of low pressure at Wilma's center was so intense that the airplane descended at over 1,000 feet per minute during the penetration in order to maintain a constant pressure altitude. By they time they punched into the incredibly tiny 4-mile wide eye, which had a central pressure of just 901 mb at 04:32 UTC, the plane was at a dangerously low altitude of 1,500 feet--not a good idea in a Category 5 hurricane. The pilot ordered an immediate climb, and the plane exited the other side of Wilma's eyewall at an altitude of 10,000 feet. They maintained this altitude for the remainder of the flight. During their next pass through the eye at 06:11 UTC, the diameter of the eye had shrunk to an incredibly tiny two miles--the smallest hurricane eye ever measured. During their third and final pass through the eye at 0801 UTC, a dropsonde found a central pressure of 882 mb--the lowest pressure ever observed in an Atlantic hurricane. In the span of just 24 hours, Wilma had intensified from a 70 mph tropical storm to a 175 mph category 5 hurricane--an unprecedented event for an Atlantic hurricane. Since the pressure was still falling, it is likely that Wilma became even stronger after the mission departed.
I'll have a new post by Tuesday at the latest.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Just reissued.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DODGE CITY KS
650 PM CDT MON APR 30 2012
KSC047-010015-
/O.CON.KDDC.TO.W.0040.000000T0000Z-120501T0015Z/
EDWARDS KS-
650 PM CDT MON APR 30 2012
...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR NORTHWESTERN EDWARDS
COUNTY UNTIL 715 PM CDT...
AT 648 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED VERY
STRONG ROTATION ASSOCIATED WITH A POSSIBLE TORNADO 3 MILES NORTH OF
OFFERLE. THIS DANGEROUS STORM WAS MOVING EAST AT 15 MPH. PING PONG
BALL SIZE HAIL IS ALSO EXPECTED WITH THIS STORM.
LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...
OFFERLE...
KINSLEY...
MAINLY RURAL AREAS OF NORTHWESTERN EDWARDS COUNTY.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
TAKE COVER NOW. MOVE TO AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A
STURDY BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS. IF IN A MOBILE HOME...A VEHICLE OR
OUTDOORS...MOVE TO THE CLOSEST SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER AND PROTECT
YOURSELF FROM FLYING DEBRIS.
&&
LAT...LON 3789 9957 3798 9957 3806 9937 3783 9934
TIME...MOT...LOC 2351Z 259DEG 15KT 3793 9953
HAIL 1.50IN
$$
SUGDEN
Yeah, I think tornado potential is going down as these storms choke each other off
ehhh one would prolly choke the other off but idk hust my guess
Just a mess...
Can we just call it an eye? For theatrics?
Would actually be much more impressive if it were higher up in the storm and the RFD hadn't cut off the inflow at the surface. Seems like it was more caused by the occlusion than by an updraft holding precipitation aloft.
MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0637
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0655 PM CDT MON APR 30 2012
AREAS AFFECTED...PORTIONS NRN OK...SRN KS...SWRN MO.
CONCERNING...TORNADO WATCH 212...
VALID 302355Z - 010200Z
THE SEVERE WEATHER THREAT FOR TORNADO WATCH 212 CONTINUES.
RAPID DEVELOPMENT/GROWTH OF SUPERCELLS HAS OCCURRED INVOF WARM
FRONTAL ZONE OVER SWRN KS AND EXTREME NWRN OK...WITH FIVE
WELL-DEFINED SRM COUPLETS EVIDENT OVER PORTIONS OF
COMANCHE/BARBER/KIOWA/EDWARDS COUNTIES KS AS OF 2345Z. TORNADO
POTENTIAL WILL CONTINUE WITH THIS ACTIVITY EWD ACROSS CORRIDOR FROM
PAWNEE/STAFFORD COUNTIES KS TO WOODS/ALFALFA COUNTIES OK...IN
HELICITY/VORTICITY-RICH ENVIRONMENT OF WARM-FRONTAL ZONE.
SFC MESOANALYSIS SHOWED WARM FRONT FROM EXTREME NERN OK
WNWWD...PASSING OBLIQUELY ACROSS KS/OK BORDER INVOF I-35 TO NW
P28...WHERE IT BECOMES LOST IN GROWING AREA OF SVR TSTMS. WARM
FRONT SHOULD CONTINUE DRIFTING NWD OVER MORE OF EXTREME SRN KS.
SUPERCELL THREAT MAY EXTEND JUST E OF WW ACROSS PORTIONS S-CENTRAL
KS AND N-CENTRAL OK...WITH LARGE/DAMAGING HAIL AND A FEW TORNADOES
POSSIBLE THROUGH EARLY EVENING. MAIN THREAT MAY TRANSITION TO
DAMAGING WIND. DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZED MCS WITH SUBSTANTIAL BOWING
CHARACTERISTICS AND SVR WIND SWATH APPEARS INCREASINGLY PROBABLE AS
SUPERCELLS AGGREGATE TOGETHER OVER SRN KS. ANY SUCH COMPLEX WOULD
MOVE EWD TO ESEWD...FOLLOWING INSTABILITY GRADIENT ACCOMPANYING
WARM-FRONTAL ZONE...AND ENHANCED BY NEARLY ORTHOGONAL COMPONENT OF
MIDLEVEL WINDS AND DEEP-SHEAR VECTORS ALOFT WITH RESPECT TO LIKELY
CONVECTIVE ALIGNMENT. MOISTURE CHANNEL IMAGERY INDICATES MINOR BUT
POTENTIALLY INFLUENTIAL UPPER-LEVEL PERTURBATION MOVING EWD ACROSS
CAO/SPD AREA...WHICH SHOULD TRACK ENEWD ACROSS SWRN KS IN IMMEDIATE
WAKE OF SWRN KS/NWRN OK CONVECTION. IN LOW LEVELS...FAVORABLE WAA
AND MOISTURE TRANSPORT WILL ACCOMPANY INCREASING LLJ AFTER
00Z...ENLARGING HODOGRAPHS AND ALSO BOOSTING STORM-RELATIVE INFLOW
ATOP BOUNDARY LAYER.
..EDWARDS.. 04/30/2012
WOOWWW
Link
TOROUN
OKC003-010100-
/O.NEW.KOUN.TO.W.0040.120501T0026Z-120501T0100Z/
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORMAN OK
726 PM CDT MON APR 30 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN NORMAN HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
EAST CENTRAL ALFALFA COUNTY IN OKLAHOMA...
* UNTIL 800 PM CDT
* AT 723 PM CDT...TRAINED STORM SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR
4 MILES WEST OF JET. THIS TORNADO WAS MOVING NORTHEAST AT 20 MPH.
* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...
GREAT SALT PLAINS LAKE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
GET IN...GET DOWN AND COVER UP. TAKE COVER NOW IN A STORM SHELTER
OR AN INTERIOR ROOM OF A STURDY BUILDING. STAY AWAY FROM DOORS AND
WINDOWS.
&&
LAT...LON 3672 9810 3671 9811 3663 9828 3672 9837
3687 9821
TIME...MOT...LOC 0023Z 227DEG 19KT 3668 9827
$$
Does this mean Greensburg thankfully got lucky and unscathed?
LOL. A good chuckle for the evening.
One of these days I'm going to make a big story when one of those kinds of people calls our office. I'll say something about how we used our HAARP in a concentrated beam to create the chemtrails that caused last night's storm. Or something like that. They'll freak out... I'll laugh.
KYC073-010100-
/O.NEW.KLMK.TO.W.0087.120501T0027Z-120501T0100Z/
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
827 PM EDT MON APR 30 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LOUISVILLE HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
FRANKLIN COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL KENTUCKY...
THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF FRANKFORT...
* UNTIL 900 PM EDT...
* AT 826 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THIS DANGEROUS
STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR FRANKFORT...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.
* THIS TORNADIC STORM WILL ALSO IMPACT...
SWITZER AND ELSINORE...
ELMVILLE...
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
HEAVY RAINFALL MAY OBSCURE THIS TORNADO. TAKE COVER NOW! IF YOU WAIT
TO SEE OR HEAR IT COMING...IT MAY BE TOO LATE TO GET TO A SAFE PLACE.
TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...CONTACT YOUR NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT
AGENCY. THEY WILL RELAY YOUR REPORT TO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
IN LOUISVILLE.
Rain, wind and about 70 here...
Yes, the might have gotten lucky. There was a reported tornado near Greensburg, but it could have lifted before hitting the city.
I can't believe this is allowed on here. This is utterly ridiculous. This is a weather site, not a conspiracy theory site. Please go and take a critical thinking class.
I know...four are ganging up in south-central Kansas/north-central Oklahoma...and there's another (but sloppy looking one) over Frankfort, Kentucky...
Yeah...Medicine Lodge could be in big trouble...
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
840 PM EDT MON APR 30 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LOUISVILLE HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SCOTT COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL KENTUCKY...
* UNTIL 915 PM EDT...
* AT 838 PM EDT...LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTED A FUNNEL CLOUD NORTHEAST
OF FRANKFORT. THE POSSIBLE TORNADO WOULD BE NEAR
WATKINSVILLE...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.
* THE TORNADO WILL ALSO IMPACT...
SKINNERSBURG AND LONGLICK...
MALLARD POINT AND BIDDLE...
TURKEY FOOT AND DOUBLE CULVERT...
DAVIS AND HINTON...
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
TAKE COVER NOW. MOVE TO AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A
STURDY BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS. IF IN A VEHICLE OR OUTDOORS...MOVE TO
THE CLOSEST SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER AND PROTECT YOURSELF FROM FLYING
DEBRIS.
TAKE COVER NOW! TORNADOES AT NIGHT CAN BE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT
WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE OR HEAR THE TORNADO. IT MAY BE TOO LATE.
TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...CONTACT YOUR NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT
AGENCY. THEY WILL RELAY YOUR REPORT TO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
IN LOUISVILLE.
&&
LAT...LON 3847 8455 3846 8453 3844 8453 3842 8449
3827 8444 3818 8472 3819 8473 3819 8472
3822 8473 3835 8474 3837 8471 3850 8456
TIME...MOT...LOC 0040Z 245DEG 38KT 3828 8471
$$
AL
No one can deny it had a chance, but the surface low (a closed and well defined LLC) broke off into the GOM, probably due to land interaction. The LLC is just west of key west, and the upper level storm is being sheared to bits.
Thanks...
Being totally honest, it never had a chance... Not with 25-30 knots of shear... Maybe in August it would've stood at least a chance, but not in April
Read post 1736
WeatherUnderground.
Laugh out loud it had a .5 chance we got hyped up gotta get the cane jitters out!
Yeah the rotation looks really good to me on that Aetna storm
Ja, WU shows major roads and town names ... though I can zoom in on the NWS web site radar.
Rotation is wayyyyyyy to broad
Viewing: 1701 - 1751
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