Slashdot Mirror
Landfall Nears For Strongest Hurricane In Recorded History (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Patricia — the strongest hurricane ever recorded — barreled closer and closer Friday to Mexico's Pacific coast, where residents have been told to brace for its 200-mph sustained winds and torrential rains. The early Friday central pressure recording of 880 millibars (the barometric pressure equivalent is 25.98 inches) "is the lowest for any tropical cyclone globally for over 30 years," according to the Met Office, Britain's weather service. One other thing alarming about Patricia is its rapid rise in intensity. It rated as a tropical storm early Thursday, but 24 hours later it had become a Category 5 hurricane. Among other effects, El Niño has contributed to ocean waters off Mexico being 2 to 3 degrees warmer than usual. "That warm water from El Niño probably just pushed this slightly over the edge to be the strongest storm on record," CNN's Myers said.
Cat 5e.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
From the article
"Patricia the third strongest tropical cyclone in history (by wind)
Super Typhoon Nancy (1961), 215 mph winds, 882 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 2 in Japan, killing 191 people.
Super Typhoon Violet (1961), 205 mph winds, 886 mb pressure. Made landfall in Japan as a tropical storm, killing 2 people.
Super Typhoon Ida (1958), 200 mph winds, 877 mb pressure. Made landfall as a Cat 1 in Japan, killing 1269 people.
Super Typhoon Haiyan (2013), 195 mph winds, 895 mb pressure. Made landfall in the Philippines at peak strength.
Super Typhoon Kit (1966), 195 mph winds, 880 mb. Did not make landfall.
Super Typhoon Sally (1964), 195 mph winds, 895 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 4 in the Philippines.
"
Its a big one but not the strongest on record. From the look of it, they tend to happen every few years so not even a weather anomaly.
The belt of warm water feeding this late-season hurricane is from El Niño, which is a cycle independent of all other cycles, and not a part of any carbon warming that may be occurring.
Mind you, this third world country has infrastructure that year after year withstands hurricanes on both coasts, and they are seldom "catastrophic" (i.e. one strong event per decade). The area where it is hitting is moderately populated, and has available shelter places with great resistance that have been used before (such as the touristic compounds in Puerto Vallarta region).
Our country has hurricanes volcanos, sismicity, poverty and whatnot. But is much better prepared for a Katrina-style event than the USA.
It clearly said "strongest hurricane", which is true. Typhoons are on the other side of the Pacific ocean. Hurricanes are only in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.
"They happen every few years". 50 years is not what I would call "few". If so, I would only be a "few" years old.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
> This is no pissing contest, this is called 'hard experimental evidence'.
This is called "a single data point". Hurricanes have been down in recent years.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Well... sort of. It's climate if any statistical property of hurricanes undergoes any statistical shift. Climate is the signal. Weather is the noise. It's like, say, driving home from work. Let's say it normally takes you an average of 20 minutes to drive home from work. Your numbers may go 17, 21, 14, 29, 19, 16, 26, 18, etc depending on local conditions... but the average is 20. But when a statistically significant sampling of drives starts averaging out higher - say, 27, 20, 21, 34, 20, 26, 31, etc... the underlying baseline has changed. The noise still exists, but it's on top of a different signal.
In terms of hurricanes, a warming average climate does not inherently mean "more hurricanes". Hurricanes from due to a complicated series of circumstances - some of which we understand well (like sea surface temperatures), some which we don't (like African dust). There's not only sea surface temperatures but the depths to which it exends, wind shear, dry air, and literally dozens of other factors. Not all of the changes that are associated with a warming planet encourage hurricanes - some discourage them. And the impacts can vary from one hurricane basin to another.
The North Atlantic basin, which most Americans care most about, has two strongly opposing effects in a warming world: increasing ocean heat versus increasing wind shear. Wind shear is death to hurricanes. The airflow patterns that fuel a hurricane require that the core be vertically aligned, so when you shear it horizontally, it fails to be able to power itself. Larger hurricanes can somewhat protect themselves against it, at the cost of declining intensity, but smaller storms get torn to shreds. It combines with dry air to worsen its effect, funneling the dry air into the core (dry air = subsidence = shutting off upflow-driven storms like hurricanes).
How these two factors ultimately play out is very difficult to predict, and particularly in the North Atlantic. The number of hurricanes per year in the North Atlantic Basin ranges from zero to dozens. And where they impact varies widely as well - the US can get nailed many times by powerful storms, or they can get hit by nothing at all. The general expectation is "mixed": that the increasing wind shear may reduce the total number of storms and will almost certainly rip apart more "vulnerable" storms - but that when conditions are right (as wind shear is constantly varying, and there are always times and places that there is little to none), storms will appear faster, grow faster, and reach higher top speeds.
That said, again, hurricanes are very complicated systems to model and predict, so it's hard to make predictions on this front with too much confidence.
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
How long is the recorded history of similarly accurate storm measurement? How old is the planet? Maybe we're just in a cycle that is a bit longer than the amount of time people have been able to measure hurricanes, or have been able to measure them as accurately.
The other reply is misleading.
We've been using "modern" measurements for hurricanes since about 1959, which just happened to have a record storm. BUT... that year also had an El Nino. And the strong El Nino of this year again made one more likely. Nothing terribly special about that, statistically. And nothing particular connecting it to "global warming".
Prior to that time, hurricanes were only actually measured at all when they made landfall. Others were only estimated from ships or from shore. Which means most of them were never measured, and in fact we actually have no idea where Patricia falls in the severity range since records began.
You completely skipped the cat 5e hurricane. You'll never get your Network+ like that.
Let's cut all the crap about global warming/climate change and remember that there are people living where this storm is making landfall. It doesn't matter if this is the strongest storm ever or if climate change caused this, there are real people in harm's way. This is not going to be pretty, between storm surge and rainfall over mountainous terrain and the flooding that will bring. So please keep these people in mind.
Do whatever you think best to help. whether that be prayer or cutting out a Starbuck's run to donate to the Red Cross. What are we put on this Earth for if not to help one another?
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
And said El Nino is being fed by carbon warming.
If it were, that would be good for California, because they can use some extra water (which tends to come in El Nino years).
Unfortunately there is no good computer modeling able to predict El Nino, and the models are divided on whether El Nino will increase or decrease as a result of AGW.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's interesting to note that while the 2015 hurricane season has been relatively quiet in the North Atlantic, when we expand to the entire world in our scope, it's been one of, if not the most, active years on record, with something like 22 storms that were Category 4 or higher, which is itself a record.
We were also pretty lucky that Joaquin steered out to sea rather than slamming into the east coast (and even then managed to dump catastrophic rainfall on South Carolina. It was within a day or two of really hammering some heavily populated areas that aren't really built to withstand regular hurricanes.