Wilma an "unbelievable Super-Category 5"?

from Steve Gregory's Weather blog:

http://www.weatherunderground.com/blog/SteveGregory/show.html


OCT 18, 2005 / 11:48AM SPECIAL URGENT UPDATE #4


RECON JUST REACHED. WILMA IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE SUPER CAT 5 --> 901MB, WITH 162kts!!!!

OVER A 50mb DROP IN 5 HOURS - THE SAME RATE AS RITA. 2 MORE HOURS OF THIS IT COULD EASILY BREAK THE ALL TIME
RECORD LOW PRESSURE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN OF 888MB.

IMAGERY SUPPORTS THIS. And the 850mb height was reported at 516 meters. The pressure reading was extyrapolated -- and we should see a dropsonde reading shortly.

I will continue to update this section during the next hour.

Steve

Last I heard it was a Cat 2. :wow:

still, it's bound to weaken somewhat in the gulf--the water there (although warm) is cooler than where she is now

but i think the NHC is only going to call it a 4 at this time though it will be named a five by the am. I am in Orlando and hoping the models do not shift even a teeny bit north. I only have two oaks left after Charlie last year but even if it doesn't we are in for some rotten weather.

Enough is enough. Maybe the snow isn't so bad after all....

i am sandwiched with the gulf and the intercoastal waterway and close to tampa bay.i am directly on the gulf beach...i was there lst week and preparing to go down for the winter this weekend..i will hold off now and stay at my nj beach home...

i am beggining to think this beach retirement idea is not such a good idea!!
hubby and i just drove from clearwater to ft lauderdale last weekend and in punta gorda that was hit so badly by charlie last yr still has huge areas of fema mobile homes..in fact one such area the mobile homes were lined up for as far as the eye can see..
charlie was supposed to hit clearwater/tampa head-on but it turned inland just before tampa and hit punta gorda..
we did sustain alot of damage from francis ..in fact the repairs are really just in full fledge process right now...over a year after we were hit with francis..
our ocean ?gulf water has been extremely warm for now over 9 months..we have had the red tide since jan...st pete north to clearwater..and a little further up north of us...
i will sit out this one up in my northern home and hope for the best...but my prayers are with all my fellow floridians..stay safe..get out if you can...
i sat through francis while it sat over us for 2 days last yr..and was terrified..on the beach...and that barely hit 100 mph...
please get out if near the coastline..no life is worht loosing to stay in a house or condo on the water...go inland please..

my heart and thoughts are with all who are in the cone..please take no chances...

with the looks of it..i could get hit on two fronts..once in clearwater and again if it heads north to my nj beach home..but no life is worth risking..

my prayers are with all of you in fla ..and my floridian neighbors and friends..and all my du friends in fla..stay safe...

fly

I had no idea you had a house down here! Beach homes in both areas is so wonderful (except during times like these when it could indeed, hit both places...

It's now a cat. 5 and there's still no way to predict where it will make landfall once it makes that turn east after Cuba and the Yucatan. It is a huge storm regardless of what it does.

I am on the water on the 9th floor on the bay in a very strong building that can withstand pretty high winds although as I discovered during Katrina, being hit head on when it came in from West to East was no picnic.

Guess will have to take this one day at a time..

Sending a hug to you Fly!

i have VERY fond memories of the place. i have not been there for maybe 35+ years, but when i looked at an aerial view of it last year, it was like i'd been there yesterday. he lived on the southern end of coronado drive, a block from the beach, back in the days when we, as little kids, could just walk to the beach alone. and the beach was deserted. oh man, miniature golf, deep sea fishing, the pier, morrison's. these are some of my best childhood memories.

my prayers go to everyone in the way of this hurricane. i hope your place is ok.

let the flat earthers keep repeating this damn it

If confirmed by dropsonde, that is one hell of a fast drop. Look out.

I am just thinking on how I will rewrite the history of the US in the fictioanl setting... need to take into account these storms...

By the way this does not please me

I'm not quite sold on the scalar theory of hurricane creation either, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bush Administration has retained the services of Dr. Evil.

--p!

It is still 5mph short of the 155mph required for cat 5 status.

It should be one pretty soon, though...

It was reported as a cat-4 hurricane around 1:20 Eastern Daylight Time on the AP newsfeed Yahoo picked up.

My brother and his family live in Orlando; my Mom's traveling down there Thursday-Friday by train. So now it's personal.

--p!

?

And where are we to evacuate to because it looks like a horror blanket over the entire state.

Wait, could we call the NWS or do we have to phone the DOC?:)

Poor gulf coast again!!!

very recently the water temps in clearwater have been upt to 93 degrees!

unheard of!! with a severe red tide that has killed most of sea life from coast out to approx 25 miles offshore ( st pete to clearwater beach and a little further up north)...many ppl have been wearing masks near the shoreline for months now because of air quality from the red tide..it has severely hurt tourist traffic...

this storm has me very worried!

fly

I know, innapropriate...but you wait and see....

like the idea of death and mayhem in Florida in 'payment' for the death of Terri Schiavo's body because they had such an emotional attachment to her body as a pulpit to rage about the evils of euthanasia.

Therefore, you are pretty much on the mark. There are some real sick people out there. And all of then deserve their Bibles to be used to insert into their fat butts as a suppository.

<http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/10/19/wilma/index.html>

CNN also states that it may quickly become a Cat 5.

000
WTNT64 KNHC 190629
TCUAT4
HURRICANE WILMA TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
230 AM EDT WED OCT 19 2005
DATA FROM A RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT HURRICANE WILMA
HAS BECOME AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE
SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. THE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE MEASURED
175 MPH WINDS AND ESTIMATED A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF 892 MB. THIS IS
THE LOWEST PRESSURE OBSERVED IN 2005 AND IS EQUIVALENT TO THE
MINIMUM PRESSURE OF THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE IN THE FLORIDA
KEYS.

FORECASTER AVILA

and if there is any physical limit to how big or dangerous a hurricane can get, once it reaches Category 5.

The 1999 Oklahoma City tornado set the record.

link:
Oklahoma Tornado Sets Wind Record

That's far more than 3 times the speed of a major league fastball.

That's less than a second to go the length of a football field.


Yaii... :scared:

The most intense storm on record was Typhoon Tip in the northwestern Pacific Ocean in 1979, which had a minimum pressure of only 870 mbar and maximum sustained windspeeds of 190 mph (305 km/h).

It weakened before striking Japan. Tip does not hold the record for fastest sustained winds in a cyclone alone; Typhoon Keith in the Pacific, and Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Allen in the North Atlantic currently share this record as well, although recorded windspeeds that fast are suspect, since most monitoring equipment is likely to be destroyed by such conditions.

Camille was the only storm to actually strike land while at that intensity, making it, with 190 mph (305 km/h) sustained winds and 210 mph (335 km/h) gusts, the strongest tropical cyclone of record to ever hit land. For comparison, these speeds are encountered at the center of a strong tornado, but Camille was much larger and long-lived than any tornado.

Typhoon Nancy in 1961 had recorded windspeeds of 213 mph (343 km/h), but recent research indicates that windspeeds from the 1940s to the 1960s were gauged too high, and this is no longer considered the fastest storm on record. <13> Similarly, a gust caused by Super Typhoon Paka over Guam was recorded at 236 mph (380 km/h); however, this reading had to be discarded, since the anemometer was damaged by the storm. Had it been confirmed, this would be the strongest non- tornadic wind ever recorded at the Earth's surface. (The current record is held by a non-hurricane wind registering 231 mph (372 km/h) at Mount Washington in New Hampshire.)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane

I was citing 1988 Gilbert as the strongest hurricane with 888 mB pressure -- though that was short-lived.

With at least four hurricanes showing intense pressure drops and profoundly cold cloudtops in just the last two years, I'd say that the sustained wind velocity record is going to fall soon, too.

Cyclone Tracy -- the tiny one in the Wikipedia graphic -- was a strange storm. There is a new proposed class of cyclonic storms called "Tornadocanes". One hit in the USA in 1999, and was similar to either a F-2 tornado or a cat-4 hurricane, much like Tracy. The tornadocane in the USA hit an unpopulated area, but Tracy made a dead-on strike on Darwin, Australia, and devastated the place.

--p!

:scared: :scared: :scared:

But hopefully it will die down a little bit before landfall in Florida this weekend right? Will it weaken like Rita or keep strong like Katrina?

... about a Cat-3 by landfall--still, a very strong storm. Equivalent to Rita or Katrina at landfall.

This could be bad.
Apocalyptically BAD.

OCT 19, 2005 / 12:55AM UPDATE #5

NHC 'ONLY' UPGRADES TO CAT 4-
BUT WILMA IS A DEVASTATING CAT 5 HURRICANE
PRESSURE FALL OF OVER 50mb IN 5 HOURS
PERSONALLY ADVISE ALL FLORIDA KEYS RESIDENTS TO EVACUATE



Air Force RECON recently found the central pressure had fallen to 901mb -- just a few MB above RITA record, and 1mb
lower than Katrina - at their Peak Intensity. The maximum Flight level winds were 162KTs in the NE quadrant, and being
conservative, this is 160mph sustained surface winds. However -- as politics would dictate -- NHC has only upgraded
the hurricane to a CAT 4, with 150mph sustained winds - 5mph below that of a CAT 5. In the Atlantic basin, pressures
below 920mb are normally associated with a CAT 5 hurricane. The storm is located at at 16.9N/82.0W and is moving NW at 5Kts.
Cloud top temps are near -87°C As cold as the temps ever get -- or at least as cold as the scale permits....
MORE...
<http://www.weatherunderground.com/blog/SteveGregory/show.html>

Could someone answer a question for me? How is it that this hurricane will make such a dramatic turn once it hits the gulf? Is it the rotation that 'steers' it?

On your graph, I assume the tighter mb's to the left mean stronger winds so it pushes her toward Florida?

I just read what the pros say...

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

http://flhurricane.com/

http://hurricane.terrapin.com/

I don't have any idea how to read your information but my partner is down there and I'm worried. Could you private an Idiot's Guide to Wilma?

... as follows:

AT 5 AM EDT...0900Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE WILMA WAS LOCATED NEAR
LATITUDE 17.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 82.5 WEST OR ABOUT 170 MILES...
270 KM...SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF GRAND CAYMAN AND ABOUT 365 MILES...
590 KM...SOUTHEAST OF COZUMEL MEXICO.

WILMA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 8 MPH...13 KM/HR. A
TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 175 MPH...280 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. WILMA IS A CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE
SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN INTENSITY ARE EXPECTED
DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 15 MILES... 30 KM...
FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP
TO 160 MILES...260 KM.

AN AIR FORCE PLANE JUST MEASURED A MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE OF 884
MB...26.10 INCHES. THIS IS THE LOWEST PRESSURE EVER RECORDED IN A
HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN. HOWEVER...THIS PRESSURE VALUE
SHOULD BE USED WITH CAUTION UNTIL IT IS FULLY CALIBRATED.


No indication that the eyewall has collapsed yet. Should have been shown from a rise in central pressure, I think. May happen yet today.

because the path of the storm is projected over the Everglades. Hurricane Irene GAINED strength over the glades. That means we can't expect too much in the way of weakening when it is over land. This is very, very concerning and I'm getting scared - again.

:(

just that we'll be made homeless. I completely expect to survive. :-)

And scared, too.

:scared:

And it's theorized it will take a big right turn and circumcize florida's doodle...

of a red 'tuning fork' that appears. Check out the images at the link. This dude (ex-NASA guy Richard Hoagland) thinks they're trying to stop the hurricane, but I think the exact opposite.

http://www.enterprisemission.com/weblog/weblog.htm

There should be top priority in building FEMA and other organizations to handle disasters like these with razor like precision and make the republicans look like the fools that they are.