Jeff Masters declares every large hurricane to be the worst ever with 200 MPH winds. he is doing it again with Patricia.
Mexico had a very similar hurricane in October 1959
Two years ago, Masters started the identical hype about Typhoon Haiyan.
The actual wind speeds were nowhere near 200 MPH, and there have been many stronger typhoons in the Philippines since 1970.
Is Typhoon Haiyan the Strongest Storm Ever? – Southeast Asia Real Time
Jeff Masters named his web site after Bill Ayers’ 1960’s terrorist organization, and is one of the key global warming propagandists.
I liked the site at first but quickly realized that the site promoted the warming nonsense and that Jeff Masters was a phony. Most amusing is a weatherman in Mexico ‘tearfully’ begging everyone to get their act together because of this monster storm coming ashore!
“While a number of typhoons in the western North Pacific have been stronger, Patricia is by far the strongest hurricane in any basin where the term “hurricane” applies to tropical cyclones – namely, the central and eastern North Pacific basins and the North Atlantic basin, which includes the North Atlantic Ocean itself plus the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.” http://www.weather.com
All we can really say is that Patricia is a very strong hurricane and there have been many other really strong hurricanes. We can say that Patricia had the lowest surface pressure *measured* in a hurricane (among Western Hemisphere tropical cyclones only), but many powerful hurricanes did not have their lowest surface pressure measured by aircraft or surface weather stations, so it is difficult to compare what has been measured to what was not measured but only inferred from damage in other storms. Tropical cyclone intensities can be estimated from satellite imagery in recent decades, but this approach is relatively crude and probably accurate to no more than about plus or minus 10 to 20 percent at best both for wind speed and lowest surface pressure. Thus, among the strongest storms, it is nearly impossible to determine which one really had the highest winds or lowest pressure. Yellow journalism at its best.
I would be willing to bet that they were not sending planes into these east Pacific storms until relatively recently, so this term “worst hurricane ever” probably does not cover very many years from a hostorical perspective.
Andy, Eastern Pacific hurricanes are investigated much less frequently by aircraft than Atlantic hurricanes and most are not investigated by aircraft at all. That leaves satellite imagery and landfall damage as the main indicators of storm strength for most of these storms. Prior to the satellite era, most of the Eastern Pacific hurricanes were missed entirely unless they hit populated coastal areas.
Dr. Roy Spencer has an article about Patricia here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/10/patricias-tight-blue-eye/.
oz4caster,
Thanks for the informed comment. Amazing how none of this fine detail is reported by the media in the context of characterizing storms. If it was I might start reading newspapers again!