1960 and '61 both had 2 cat 5 storms, but tracks tell the story

Both 1960 and 1961 had two Category 5 hurricanes. There were no Category 4 hurricanes during 1960, but 2 during 1961. so what's the key differences between then and now?

Look at the tracks of the Category 4 and 5 storms those years compared to the four Category 4 or 5 storms so far this year. All four this year hit the gulf.

1960

Hurricane Donna 29 AUG - 14 SEP



Hurricane Ethel 14-17 SEP



1961

Hurricane Betsy 2-12 SEP



Hurricane Carla 3-16 SEP



Hurricane Esther 10 - 27 SEP



Hurricane Hattie 27 OCT - 1 NOV



Compared to 2004:

Hurricane Dennis 5 - 13 JUL



Hurricane Emily 11-21 JUL



Hurricane Katrina 23 - 31 AUG



Hurricane Rita 19 - 21? SEP

I guess I'm not getting it. :shrug:

Look at them. In 1960, Ethel was the only storm which really affected the Gulf, and it hit at only a Category 1. Donna did hug the Gulf Coast side of Florida for a bit as a Category 3, but never moved into the Gulf.

In '61, Only Hurricanse Carla moved into the Gulf. All other catastrophic storms in '61 were outside the Gulf.

Now look at this year. Four major storms, and every last one of them hit inside the Gulf. Last year, three major storms affected the Gulf.

The point is, Antlantic side storms are affecting the Gulf more than in previous years, and the intensity of storms affecting the Gulf is only increasing.

Compare that to how water temperatures have changed in the Gulf, and you see a big piocture start to form.

Global warming?

Shouldn't there be more powerful hurricanes outside the gulf? I mean, since they were happening more there anyway.

That's the key.

and Caribbean.

Intensity of tropical storms will also increase.

it was horrid this year.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/10/Tampabay/Red_Tide_toll__732_to.shtml
<snip>
Researchers don't have all the answers, but Heil said warmer surface water temperatures brought on by a hot summer may have made this year's bloom particularly bad.

Here's how:

Karenia brevis, the scientific name for the Red Tide organism in Florida, is a single-celled, toxin-producing plant that can swim. It takes roughly an hour for one to propel itself through a foot of water.

The organism does not like to swim through dramatic changes in temperature. And this year the layer of water in the gulf that divides warm waters near the surface from the cooler waters below is particularly well-defined.

Especially close to the shore.

along with other factors like wind shear. Location is dependent upon upper air steering currents, which is dependent mainly upon location of high pressure systems like the Bermuda High. In 2004 and this year the Bermuda High was displaced further south and west, forcing tropical storms further south to avoid the blocking high(the truly rare hits on Grenada). Once the storms are forced into the Caribbean basin or the Gulf of Mexico, they have to strike land. In other years, the tracks will revert to their more normal patterns and be primarily in the Atlantic.

Unless you like to scroll a lot, and/or waste a forest's worth of paper to print this shit out.

We are not paid $50k/yr to research this stuff or paid $250k to look prim and proper just to say it in front of a video camera as if we did the real work ourselves...

Although from the tracking of Rita and knowing that hurricanes spin counterclockwise, something would have to "make" it change it's course dramatically if the tracking is correct. The tracking looks off...is it? Rita did hit Florida.

The bullet dodged us.

I must be thinking of all the rain and wind CNN made Rob Marcianno (sp) stand out in.

Lots of rain and wind

Yes there was a lot of wind and rain. But the hurricane never made landfall which is why it increased in strength rather than decrease.

just trying to keep all the weather stuff straight. I hardly pay attention to the weather - except for humidity which I hate - but usually whatever is happening weatherwise is happening. I live in a pretty mellow place weatherwise.

and the winds behind them...kept south by high pressure in the north..

It just depends on whether there's a low pressure area in the South (to usher the hurricane north)

Hot & sunny in the south, and the hurricane drifts westward into Texas & Mesico..

Rainy and unstable in the south , and the hurricane goes north..

Calmer winds allow it to sit over hot water and get stronger, but the overall winds push it ...or so says Max mayfield (in layman's terms)

He once described them as a spinning tennis ball..spinning fast, but still affected by the winds that push it one way or another.. The hurrican itself does not determine its target.

"It appears episodic dust storms are capable of depositing disease-ridden particles across the Caribbean. These particles are carried in persistent trade winds blowing across the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert and bordering drought-ridden areas such as Lake Chad. Climatologist Jim Hurrell has discovered that the strength of these tradewinds is, in part, attributable to a remarkable feature of the atmosphere that sits over the north Atlantic: two gigantic air masses, one high pressure, the other low-known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). (Some scientists refer to the NAO as the Arctic Oscillation or alternatively the North Annular Oscillation.)

The two air masses of the NAO propel storms up into the northern regions of Europe and Eurasia while simultaneously shuttling dust from Africa over to the Americas. During the 1980s and the 1990s, these two air systems tended to be locked in an intense positive phase one winter after the next. This pattern has persisted for the last 20-30 years.

Modeling this phenomenon, Hurrell discovered that Earth's rising temperature is affecting the year-to-year behavior of this massive atmospheric system. Focusing on an area of the world where the average temperature has been rising particularly fast — the Indian Ocean — Hurrell's models suggest that the energy released into the atmosphere by the warming waters there may be reinforcing the energy of the North Atlantic Oscillation. "

http://www.pbs.org/strangedays/episodes/onedegreefactor/experts/africandust.html

There's a good documentary on PBS that shows how a couple of women figured out what was causing both to happen in the lower Caribbean..

Everything's connected on earth..like squeezing a water balloon..squeeze it on one end..and the mass just goes elsewhere..

anyone who doubts that there are "bigger things happening" does so at their own peril:(

that was the TV show i saw this on in the first place...just the other day....

pretty crazy huh?

Is there something now that affects storm tracks that wasn't present in 1960?

I really hate DU guessing games.

Sea surface temperatures:

that hurricanes are "attracted" to warmer water temps--which I'm not too sure is a valid idea. Yes, hurricanes are powered by warm water temperatures, but it doesn't mean the presence or absence of warmer water drives the direction they move in once they're formed. IF a hurricane trends into warmer water, it'll become bigger and stronger; but it's not like warm water acts like a magnet or something. There are all kinds of other factors affecting which way a hurricane moves.

I could be wrong of course, but I think it's up to you to prove your theory.

That's the key difference. Four Category four or above storms hitting the Gulf in one year, and we're barely past the halfway point of the hurricane season!

The path of a hurricane, above all, is determined by which way the trade wind is blowing. I would not assign anything more than coincidence to the fact that fewer storms went into the Gulf of Mexico in 1960/1961 than this year or even 1995, which was the most active year in decades.

The thing is we just happened to have had the right steering currents for these hurricanes to hit the Gulf than in previous years. Ocean temperatures aside, it's the steering winds that determine where they go.

You are better off arguing that the strength of hurricanes will only increase as ocean surface temperatures increase as a result of global warming. The only question is by what degree.

If you are arguing that ocean temperatures have a direct effect on the strength of hurricanes, you are correct, but the direction of these hurricanes is determined by the winds in the atmosphere. It just so happens this year the trade winds are just the right configuration to send them up into the Gulf. A similar configuration steered Camille right into the Mississippi coast.

did not have the intensity of this year's storms.

Hurricane Georges, which also hit Mississippi in 1998 came ashore as a weak Cat 3 storm even though it moved directly over the warmest parts of the Gulf. The reason why this is so is because of atmospheric conditions stunting its growth, not because of lack of warmth of ocean water. If I remember correctly, wind sheer prevented Georges from exploding in power. You have to have several variables in the right place to allow for explosive growth. Ocean temperatures represent one variable.

This year for some reason they have been developing on western edge (of Atlantic) which really cuts down on prep time. What would be the reason IYO for this major change?

have developed all along hurricane alley. If you go back 100 years and put a pin where each tropical wave became a tropical storm and stronger, you'd see that the points are all over the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and the Atlantic. What you are seeing this year is not necessarily abnormal. In fact, it is what is expected. It just so happens we got hit in an area that was always vulnerable, a city below sea level.

as some say now, the ocean currents are stopped by the melting of arctic ice, the lower Atlantic will become as warm or warmer than the Gulf...

are Tropical Cyclones.

:eyes:

I remember a major hurricane when I was a kid in Maine, and now I know the name, Esther. We were far enough inland that all we got were heavy winds and rain, and our power went out for a day or two, but it really whacked the coast of Maine.

This goes back all the way to 1851:

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/

Interesting stuff - really.

I don't remember much but I was 9 years old on the Maine coast.

We used to get many hurricanes back when I was a kid. I remember trees down and power out. We haven't had a serious hurricane here in many years.