20th Anniversary Of Hurricane Andrew

In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck Florida with 145 knot winds. It was the last category five hurricane to hit the US. The second highest land wind speeds (135 knots) were at the Indianola hurricane of 1886.

By contrast, the highest land wind speeds from Katrina were 110 knots

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56 Responses to 20th Anniversary Of Hurricane Andrew

  1. rocknblues81 says:

    When will a 225MPH hurricane hit?

  2. Andy DC says:

    The publicity hounds at the NHC are at it again. They are having Ernesto recurve in such a manner that it looks like a threat to the US Gulf Coast. It seems that they are going against their own own guidance, that takes Ernesto into Central America or southern Mexico. Unless there is some drastic change in the flow pattern, it is highly doubtful that Ernesto will get anywhere near the US Gulf Coast.

  3. Timdot says:

    (Hopefully the HTML tags work) Long time browser, can’t remember posting a comment so sorry, but had to point this out to you Steve. Your ‘mate’ WOT on your NOAA Massive Fail post;

    WOT says:
    August 4, 2012 at 4:29 am

    Wrong. You look at trends. You don’t look at statistical outliers. Besides, if you did, then 2005 would be an interesting record breaking year, would it not? 2005 saw four category fives. Confirmed category fives.

    WOT says:
    August 4, 2012 at 5:04 am

    You have to look at trends though – and broader numbers. Statistics is a funny thing because you pretty much have to do whatever you can to smooth trend lines and ignore statistical outliers because over time with more and more data points the trends will win out and noise will become less and less significant.

    So, you’re wrong if you look at trends and ignore outliers, but you have to look at the trends and ignore outliers…

    I… Don’t… Under… Help… Absorbed… Warmenist… Logic… Self… Destr…

  4. WOT says:

    You didn’t look anything up did you? Andrew struck FL as a category 5. This means it’s winds at landfall were not 145mph. Try to look up what they actually were. Katrina made landfall with 125mph winds. There were reports of 110mph winds 70 miles inland in MS. Official reports.

    Timdot:
    You look at trends because if you don’t you’ll pull a Goddard. 1992 was a low activity year for the tropical Atlantic. Yet there was a category 5 hit. Andrew was the first storm, and it formed all the way out in August. It would be like me saying 2005 was just as bad as 1988 and 1935 and 1980 because they had incredibly strong category 5s, or that 1935 and 1969 were very bad years because they each had 1 category 5 landfall.

    • Shooter says:

      Around and around we go, where we’ll end up, we’ll never know!

    • Don Sutherland says:

      Great point, WOT. Maximum sustained winds of 145 mph is a Category 4 hurricane. Andrew was a Category 5 at landfall.

      • OMG. NOAA is messing with your head. Please contact them immediately and tell them to stop.

        145 Andrew

        http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/ushurrlist18512009.txt

      • Don Sutherland says:

        As WOT correctly noted, the 145 refers to knots, not mph.

      • Don Sutherland says:

        No one here has suggested that Andrew was not stronger than Katrina. Andrew was only one of three Category 5 hurricanes to make U.S. landfall, the others being the Labor Day Hurricane (1935) and Camille (1969). What is at issue is your incorrect listing of Andrew’s maximum sustained winds at landfall. They were 145 knots not 145 mph. Knots and mph are not synonymous.

      • WOT says:

        Well according to your logic that since Andrew was stronger than Katrina (1992 versus 2005) and that hurricane activity is going down, I’m going to use the exact same seasons and different storms to point out something that is completely the opposite.

        Andrew bottomed out at 922 mb. Wilma bottomed out at 882. Therefore (using your specious argument based on cherry-picking) I can clearly show that hurricane activity is increasing and getting worse. Not only that, but Wilma was the strongest hurricane ever recorded, and it was in October. We also had Hurricane Mitch, another category 5, in late October in 1998.

        Funny what conclusions you can come up with when you cherry pick data.

        By the way, Katrina was at one point stronger in terms of pressure than Andrew. But, Katrina was weakening as it approached landfall whereas Andrew was strengthening towards landfall.

        But if we go by landfalls only, Andrew was stronger than Wilma – even though Wilma was at one point the strongest in recorded history.

        Now do you see why cherry picking data is bad? Now do you see why landfalls only are arbitrary and irrelevant?

        • The IPCC told the US Congress this week that hurricanes are increasing because of global warming. They were lying. That is why I have been writing these articles. I am not interested in your straw man arguments.

      • gofer says:

        A wild goose chase…………….

      • WOT says:

        “The IPCC told the US Congress this week that hurricanes are increasing because of global warming. They were lying. That is why I have been writing these articles. I am not interested in your straw man arguments. ”

        Citation needed.

    • Eric Webb says:

      He said “145 knot winds” NOT MPH,wow you’re dumb, and 145 knots would equal about 165 mph, which IS A CATEGORY 5 hurricane.

  5. WOT says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew
    The anniversary is in 2 weeks or so. It’s certainly not today. It made landfall as a category 5. A category five has winds in excess of 155mph.

    “The hurricane accelerated as it tracked due westward into an area of very favorable conditions, and began to rapidly intensifying by late on August 22; in a 24 hour period the atmospheric pressure dropped by 47 mbar (47 hPa; 1.4 inHg) to a minimum of 922 mbar (922 hPa; 27.2 inHg).[1] On August 23, the storm attained Category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and at 1800 UTC, Andrew reached peak winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) while located a short distance off Eleuthera island in the Bahamas.[nb 1][8] Operationally, the National Hurricane Center assessed its peak intensity as 150 mph (240 km/h),[9] which was upgraded to 155 mph (249 km/h) in a post-analysis after the season ended; the hurricane was later re-classified as a Category 5 hurricane.[8] Even with winds of 175 mph (280 km/h), Andrew was a small tropical cyclone, with winds of 35 mph (56 km/h) extending out only about 90 miles (140 km) from its center.[10] After reaching that intensity, the hurricane underwent an eyewall replacement cycle.[11] At 2100 UTC on August 23, Andrew made landfall on Eleuthera with winds of 160 mph (260 km/h).[8] The cyclone weakened further while crossing the Bahama Banks, and at 0100 UTC on August 24, Andrew hit the southern Berry Islands of the Bahamas with winds of 150 mph (240 km/h).[8] As it crossed over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the hurricane rapidly re-intensified as the eye decreased in size and its eyewall convection deepened.[1] At 0840 UTC on August 24, Andrew struck Elliott Key with winds of 165 mph (266 km/h) and a pressure of 926 mbar (27.3 inHg). About 25 minutes after its first Florida landfall, Andrew hit just northeast of Homestead with a slightly lower pressure of 922 mbar (922 hPa; 27.2 inHg).[8]”

  6. WOT says:

    “Now that we have that terribly important point sorted out, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? ”

    The measured wind speed of a hurricane is pretty objective – and as an electrical engineer you should know about getting your units right and at the very least checking them. Or, have you confused amps with watts before?

    If you can’t get something basic right like reading the data and determining (or looking at) the units involved, then chances are you aren’t going to get more complicated conclusions right. I mean, would you trust someone to drive a bus across the country if they don’t know what the brakes are?

    • Is this the best you can come up with?

      How about critiquing Hansen`s claim that warming is worse than he forecast in 1988? Show us that you actually care about the facts.

      • WOT says:

        “How about critiquing Hansen`s claim that warming is worse than he forecast in 1988? Show us that you actually care about the facts. ”

        That probably belongs in another thread. I’d have to research it before I could come up with an adequate conclusion – but unlike you since I don’t know much about Hansen’s research or claims, I won’t come up with a conclusion beforehand.

  7. WOT says:

    “The IPCC told the US Congress this week that hurricanes are increasing because of global warming. They were lying. That is why I have been writing these articles. I am not interested in your straw man arguments. ”
    Citation needed.

    Warmer temperatures CAN lead to more tropical cyclones, yes. However it doesn’t mean that they automatically will. You can have very warm ocean temperatures in a given year and have little tropical cyclone activity because it takes more than warm water for a tropical cyclone to develop. If a conducive pattern doesn’t match when the water is at it’s warmest, or where, then tropical cyclones won’t develop.

    For example, in 2005 the lower western Caribbean was extremely warm, and only one cyclone managed to tap into that – which was Wilma. Had there not been an upper level anti-cyclone at that time, Wilma would have never formed.

  8. WOT says:

    “And monkeys can potentially fly out my ass”
    In other words you’ve been shown to be patently wrong and all you can say is that.

    When you say things like that, it looks like you aren’t interested in facts and data, only your side of things and your point of view. If anything shows that point of view to be wrong, you dismiss it or ignore it.

    Tell me how I could possibly be wrong.

    I will say this though, if you don’t have the stamina to even wikipedia Andrew to see what its windspeed was in MPH (and try to doublecheck your data) or the basic knowledge of what makes a category 3 or 5 storm, then I will take your conclusions about the activity of hurricane seasons with a huge grain of salt.

    If you aren’t aware of what it takes for a tropical cyclone to develop out of a tropical wave, or don’t notice data in knots, then I doubt you know that much about tropical cyclones period.

    I mean you did think Mauritius was in the Atlantic Ocean for crying out loud.

  9. WOT says:

    “Those evil hurricanes are avoiding the US just to confuse the public.Except for Katrina, which was the new normal for a couple of weeks. ”
    Citation needed. Also try using a space between a period and a new sentence.

    Short term patterns determine land-falling activity. Long term patterns determine active seasons. Seasons can be very active with few landfalls, and very inactive with one major landfall (1992).

    Also, landfalling numbers aren’t enough because 5 tropical storm landfalls aren’t the same as 1 category 5 landfall.

    You could at least look at the total ACE globally instead of cherry picking one number from one basin. That would at least be honest.

    • WOT says:

      “350 MPH”
      Your first link lists 350mph as ‘F5’, which it isn’t. It’s technically around F6 to F7, probably F6.5. Yes, the Fujita scale goes to F12.

      This is not possible in a hurricane, and even though hurricanes can spawn tornadoes:
      1) The worst damage was consistent with an F4 tornado in terms of home destruction in Homestead
      2) No homes were swept completely off of their foundations, indicating no F5 damage anywhere in the storm
      3) Wind gusts to 200mph are entirely possible in a category 5 of that strength
      4) Wind gusts to 350mph are theoretically impossible anywhere on Earth, including a tornado – barring something huge like a thermonuclear detonation or meteor impact

      Amazing that Goddard didn’t reply to this and doesn’t care that this misinformation is on his blog….

      • Eric Webb says:

        “wind gusts of 200 MPH are impossible from a category 5 of that strength.” yes they are, as hurricane maximum sustained winds increase so does the differential in sustained winds and wind gusts. A tropical storm may only have a 5 mph differential, but once you get up to category 5, that differential will be in excess of 25 MPH, which would put the MAX wind gusts near 200 MPH, seriously you have no idea what you are talking about.

  10. WOT says:

    I see you finally corrected your post. It took you long enough. Also, Andrew wasn’t the strongest hurricane by wind speed to hit the US. So, your post is somewhat misleading.

  11. WOT says:

    “No you are continuously misleading.”

    You don’t like to address anything if someone shows you to be factually wrong, do you? You just resort to personal insults.

    Keep going Pee Wee Herman.

    • No You are just an asshole who has no interest in science

    • Eric Webb says:

      WOT, you have no idea about happened in the past, a 200 MPH category 5 hurricane “Labor Day 1935” hit the florida keys with SUSTAINED WINDS of 200 MPH, and wind gusts even higher than that, and that was when CO2 levels were lower than they were today.

  12. Andy DC says:

    As you have said, there are 3 landfalling CAT 5’s. They are Florida Keys, 1935, Camille 1969 and Andrew, 1992. Nothing since. That is too little data to show a trend. At far as CAT 5’s at sea, yes 4 CAT 5s in 2005 is impressive, but there is insufficient data before 1965 to determine what might have happened on the open sea. I don’t think 40-50 years of data is enough to make the claim that something is “unprecedented” or demonstrates meaning warming.

    • WOT says:

      “I don’t think 40-50 years of data is enough to make the claim that something is “unprecedented” or demonstrates meaning warming.”
      But, if you go along those lines you also can’t say it means ‘cooling’ – which is what Goddard likes to do all the time.

      I kind of side that it’s not enough data, and the best way to look at things is global ocean heat content, since not all of it will be tapped by tropical systems if the weather conditions aren’t right.

      Just like in 2005, the entire western Caribbean was pretty much untouched until Wilma, and it was the hottest part of the Atlantic that season.

  13. WOT says:

    “WOT, you have no idea about happened in the past, a 200 MPH category 5 hurricane “Labor Day 1935? hit the florida keys with SUSTAINED WINDS of 200 MPH, and wind gusts even higher than that, and that was when CO2 levels were lower than they were today.”

    I’m aware of the 1935 storm and it was an anomaly, not the average. The sustained winds at that speed are a matter of debate though, but they were probably at least 185mph.

    You say I have no idea of what happened in the past when in this exact post I mentioned the 1935 storm – then you act like I was ignorant of it.

    Read the entire thread before posting, my friend.

    • Eric Webb says:

      They aren’t much of a debate, there’s a very good reason why it was noted to have winds of 200 MPH. FYI, I did read the whole thread thank you, and I can clearly see that you’re the ignorant one here, sea surface temperatures aren’t nowhere near as important as the effects of the atmosphere, trade winds, upper level anti-cyclone, 400 millibar temperatures, wind shear, etc… The storms of 2005 didn’t get as strong as they did with just sea surface temperatures, each storm had a very large anticyclone and good outflow in all quadrants, with low wind shear and light trade winds. If sea surface temperatures were that in important, how come in 2010 and 2011, under la nina, favorable atmospheric conditions, that the strongest storms were over the central atlantic, not over the northwest caribbean, where the warmest waters were?

  14. WOT says:

    “You are completely full of shit.”
    That’s what really happened. It’s called the Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2005. It’s pretty well documented, you know.

    Instead of insults, why don’t you try to actually address anything or maybe research to see if I’m right or not, or to see if you can find counterclaims?

    You claim you’re interested in honesty, so act like it.

  15. WOT says:

    “You are a liar and an asshole. Quite simple.”
    Why don’t you show me how? Take a point I made, research it, and find a counterexample.

    Or are you just lazy?

  16. WOT says:

    “You are a liar and an asshole. Quite simple.”

    Then again, I’m not the one who:
    1) claims they are a climate expert when they’re not
    2) thinks running a ‘climate blog’ is somehow publishing real science or doing ‘real science’
    3) when cornered with something resorts to an insult and doesn’t bother to look anything up
    4) when posting a citation, doesn’t bother to read it or even look at the units being used
    5) tries to adjust starting and end points on his graphs to find the trends he’s looking for
    6) picks data that only agrees with his position, and conveniently ignores the mountains of data that disagrees with him
    7) tries to determine a short term weather pattern of an entire sub-continent by looking at a single webcam image off of the highest part of that sub-continent
    8) makes claims that are easily refutable with a 30 second search in google, then when someone says “gee I’m not sure, let me look that up, here’s a citation and here’s how and why you are wrong” calls them an asshole

    Seems pretty cut and dry to me who the asshole is.

  17. WOT says:

    “You are blabbering so fast, no one has any idea what you are talking about or referring to.”
    Another meaningless post.
    1) take a claim I made
    2) research it
    3) find out if it’s true or not
    4) if it is not true, post a counterexample

    4b) If you were incorrect, say “sorry, I was mistaken” and move on. Don’t call someone an asshole for correcting you – especially if you want your blog to be all sciencey and whatnot.

  18. Eric Webb says:

    If it isn’t one troll it is another, first Don Gaddes now this guy.

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