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Patricia, Strongest Hurricane Ever Seen In Eastern Pacific, Strikes In Mexico
CNN reports that Hurricane Patricia has made landfall in Mexico; Patricia is notable for having the third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded, and as "the strongest hurricane ever observed in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic oceans." Slate points out that at one point, "satellite estimates of Patricia’s intensity broke the Dvorak scale, peaking at 8.3 on the 8.0 scale. ... In fact, Patricia is now very close to the theoretical maximum strength for a tropical cyclone on planet Earth." The Weather Channel is tracking the storm's path, and predicts "catastrophic damage ... along a narrow path as the eye slices into the interior of southwest Mexico Friday night." Here's a map from the National Weather Service showing Patricia's track as well as projected path.
As often happens with Pacific storms since ocean conditions for maintaining strength are rarely favorable near coastal areas in that part of the world. Winds were down over 50mph by the time it made landfall.
and,
the only homes of the poor.
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Dvorak is derived from sustained wind speed and pressure. The wind speeds are so high, and the pressures so low on this storm that they exceed the theoretical maximum (8.0) listed for Dvorak.
I assume they calculated it at 8.3 by extrapolating from the existing scale.
Does anyone understand the Dvorak scale well enough to comment on how this hurricane supposedly broke it and yet it can be accurately put on the scale as an 8.3?
And more importantly, what is it on the Qwerty scale, which is the one that most of us know?
If it hasn't been written down it hasn't been seen. /sarcasm
That's not quite so exclusive as it sounds. There are a lot of storms with the same barometer reading
870mm - Typhoon Tip (1979)
875mm - Typhoon June (1975)
875mm - Typhoon Nora (1973)
877mm - Typhoon Ida (1958)
880mm - Typhoon Kit (1966)
880mm - Typhoon Rita (1978)
880mm - Typhoon Vanessa (1984)
880mm - Hurricane Patricia (2015)
The 1970s were a bad decade for storms in the West Pacific.
a chaotic system will produce much larger storms than ever before.
I love it when people use phrases like "ever before" when they actually mean "in our brief recorded history".
The hurricane force winds only extend about 25 miles which is way below the average of 100 miles. Katrina was around 125 miles. So while the peak winds here are fast it's a very small storm. Almost midway between a hurricane and tornado.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
..of the potential for flooding in Mexico City. Also, what kind of damage does a 50mph wind do to a shanty-town?
Here's the classification system that we use in the Philippines, where there on average 20 Typhoon's (your Hurricane's eastern twisted sister) per year. It describes the predicted effect at different intensity grades on builds ranging from very light to heavy construction materials. Note that metric units are used.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
First, some background. Dvorak is a well-known blowhard tech pundit. His blowhardness is so great that meteorologists unanimously decided to adopt the scale to measure the strength of hurricanes.
To put this in perspective, imagine being in the same room with one Dvorak. Then imagine the same room filled with eight point three Dvoraks. That's how strong this hurricane is.
Dvorak is derived from sustained wind speed and pressure. The wind speeds are so high, and the pressures so low on this storm that they exceed the theoretical maximum (8.0) listed for Dvorak.
I assume they calculated it at 8.3 by extrapolating from the existing scale.
No - This hurricane goes the whole way to 11.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Me? I'm just hoping that the windspeed stays below escape velocity!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Your description sort of comes close. The scale was originally based on categories of visual features in satellite imagery, for use when direct wind measurements were not possible. They were roughly correlated with wind over time, but still is mainly a categorization scheme more than a scale. It is like the F and EF scales of tornado, which are roughly based on damage done to various structures. Both sets of scales have a max category, where a hurricane has the strong features or a tornado does the worst listed categories of damage. It is discrete, so there is no higher value on that scale, unless you try fitting a wind speed to it and extrapolating. But that is re-purposing and changing a scale that was not about raw wind speed into one that is.
I was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and I remember Hurricane Opal(1995) like it was yesterday. The highest wind speeds were captured just blocks from my home on Hurlburt Air Force base at 145 mph. I've seen, firsthand, the absolute destruction these wind speeds can cause. Homes built near the water that were supposed to be hurricane proof were absolutely leveled. Our 4 lane highway running through Okaloosa Island was torn away in massive chunks. The day after the storm boats of all sizes were found in peoples homes, parking lots, and many other random places around the city. I hope these people have strict building codes and have taken the best possible precautions available to them, things are going to be ugly.