Hurricane Advice

[Frazzemrat1]

Wind speed at 10,000 feet is irrelevant. The Saffir-Simpson scale is based on wind speed at 10 meters to predict building damage. If NOAA has changed how they rate hurricanes I want to know about it because it's not comparing apples to apples to compare hurricane wind speed measured at 10 meters with that measured at 10,000 feet.

Of course! They drop probes into the storm.

 

[adrikeen]

This whole weather/natural disaster situation is insane! My hubby and I cruise every year and it's just devastating that these beautiful islands and their inhabitants lives are now destroyed. My husband informed me that there is no one left on Barbuda...only rescue workers trying to round up the animals/wildlife. I was at work today when I heard about the second Mexico earthquake. I was in shock. I'm not a doomsday believer...but I'm starting to question that now.

 

[Kiki]

I don't have satellite or cable tv right now. Getting world news from local channels is the pits as they barely cover anything at all. Most of my tv news comes from the Tokyo (NHK-WLD) channel and some from MPT (Maryland Public TV).

My local news did have a clip of the PR Governor minutes ago saying he was afraid most people were being too complacent and not realizing how devastating Maria would be. Also on tv was the official from the island of Dominica - saying it was destroyed and that now they were going to start search and rescue to account for every person who was on the island.

SO sad.

 

[adrikeen]

Ok, I guess I shouldn't be so shocked by the earthquake situation...I didn't think they were common (naivety of living on the East Coast) but according to Google they are mega common....it looks like they amp up every few years.

 

[Kiki]

 

[Kiki]

I like the live videos on youtube...I can't find a good one right now though.

 

[Bunnylady]

By saying extrapolation I think you must mean modeling.

Extrapolate means "extend (a graph, curve, or range of values) by inferring unknown values from trends in the known data."

It's not a computer model, it's a simple math calculation. You take a reading here, and based on what you know as a trend, you arrive at an estimated value there. They used to take readings at altitude and then estimate the 10-meter value at something like 70% of that, but comparing the readings to actual measurements from dropsondes and surface readings, they have since adjusted to about 90%. So when they got a reading of 180 mph at 10,000 feet, they adjusted that to a 10-meter value of about 165 mph.

I have little doubt that the hurricane hunters are adrenaline junkies, but they are risking their lives going up in those planes, and they have nothing to gain by exaggerating the conditions they are working in. On the contrary, if the word got around that their data was consistently unreliable, there would be little point in them going up, and they'd be out of a job.

 

[biophiliac]

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

My husband informed me that there is no one left on Barbuda...only rescue workers trying to round up the animals/wildlife.

There's no one on Barbuda because they made everyone leave.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

San Juan radar