WolfStock1

Is there actually increased solar energy during the peaks of the cycle? From all I've seen those peaks are the peak of *activity* (magnetic fluctuations resulting in sunspots), not actually energy peaks. Wouldn't the actual solar energy received by the earth be *lower* during periods of peak sunspot activity? (Given that a sunspot is a "cool spot" where less energy is being output) I know there are more CMEs during the peaks, resulting in more-frequent aurora peaks; but it seems like that would be just noise in what might otherwise be a general lower level of overall energy from the sun. Not an expert on the subject - just putting out a "seems to me" theory.

And yet worldwide life expectancy continues to rise. https://www.statista.com/statistics/805060/life-expectancy-at-birth-worldwide/ Something doesn't jive. Methinks it's the information in these "reports". (So much for the "good thing" of mass die-off)

Unfortunately the end toll will probably come in that high. It's early. Saving grace is they had lots of warning. However unlike the US most people just don't have the ability to evacuate, at least in terms of going somewhere hundreds of miles away in another state that's safe.

Yeah very sad situation there; and good points about being an island. Saving grace perhaps is that the most-built areas of the island - around Kingston - was not as hard hit. But yeah as you say it's not like Katrina etc. where people can be driving there from other states to help with cleanup and rebuild; it's a much harder thing on an island like that, even for people that have a vested interest. I would encourage everyone to donate some $ - there are already charities collecting funds for use for Jamaica.

Reading up - it does seem like a vessel or two - including S.S. Phemius and the schooner Abundance - that got caught in it and I guess got accurate enough measurements. Poor sods. Though it seems like they had to do a lot of extrapolating to come up with the 78-hour number.

Nah - most of those went below Cat 5 before being affected by land - e.g. the other 4 besides Melissa over the last two years. What I'm wondering about is how they knew the 1932 was Cat 5 for so long. We didn't have satellite or even radar back then; nor did we have C130's to do fly-throughs. Can't do post-hoc damage analysis on the water. So how did they know?

Yeah this. Despite having the look of most-structure-still-standing - I would venture those videos are showing well over 90% actual destruction. When you include the cost of cleanup - it may cost more to clear-out-and-rebuild those areas than it cost to build them in the first place.

Yeah wow - rapid re-formation:

Well - Mitch made landfall with 80 mph winds; Melissa of course was over double that. Orders of magnitude more damage from 180 mph wind.

Here's the thing - I've driven through Chimney Rock, which was probably the worst-hit place, just a few months ago. Roughly half the downtown was wiped out. But generally that's about it; and it's a quite-small downtown actually. I have relatives that live right there in Lake Lure, and they - along with about 95% of the area - were relatively unaffected, aside from lost power, some downed trees, and some road washouts. The vast majority of structures were generally unaffected. You see the spectacular devastation of the areas hardest hit and assume that's the majority of places, but it's not; it's media selection bias. Contrast with the eye wall of a hurricane - of this force - which will wipe out almost everything; leaving almost no structure at least undamaged, and completely destroying a high percentage. Part of the reason I say that is due to the poverty of Jamaica - they just don't have the hurricane wind standards that the US does. (Just to reiterate - not trying to understate the fact that there will be massive rain-flood damage; I'm just asserting that I think the wind damage will likely be worse, along with the storm surge flooding.) Edit to add: the "wiped off the map" verbiage was mine - but I specifically qualified it with "large areas"; what I meant was for instance miles-wide swaths. In Chimney Rock's case, for instance, the swath was roughly 300-500 ft wide (you can see on google maps). Melissa's eye wall is about 300x that wide.

Definite eye breakdown / contraction going on.

True enough - I wasn't really addressing landslides, just flooding water volume. In that respect yeah - the landslides will certainly be worse. River flow is a direct function of land area X rainfall rate/level right? While the normal flow might be higher on a per-land-area-served basis; presumably that's due to Jamaica getting more rain during normal periods than NC; given an equal amount of heavy rainfall though they both would flow the same of course. That said - one key difference here may simply be the very *fast* dumping of rain in certain areas; moreso than Helene where the rate of rainfall wasn't as fast as Melissa. So tributaries will probably be worse-off for short periods than Helene. FWIW - I've driven through a lot of the Helene areas. While the damage was really bad; it wasn't "wipe large areas off the map" bad. The bad thing about Helene was that the damage was spread over a *huge* area - like several dozen Jamaicas.

Yeah there have actually been over a dozen Cat 5 landfalls. So - asserted stat is just wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes#Landfall

Perhaps, but in both case total destruction generally only happens in a small area; in the case of winds it's around the eye; in the case of rainfall it's low-lying areas - along rivers and such. River damage is only a couple hundred yards wide typically though; this eye is 20 miles wide. A house that's not along a creek or river will see no damage from rainfall but tons of damage from wind. Reality will be both of course. Bad hurricane flooding typically comes from storm surge. Helene was an exception last year of course - but that's mostly because the watershed areas are quite large for the rivers that did the big damage. E.g. the watershed for the French Broad in NC is about 10,000 sq miles. In Jamaica the watershed for say the Black River is about 100 sq miles, so even twice the rainfall as Helene would result in only 1/50 the flow. It's one of the advantages of being an island - it'll drain better. Not saying there won't be some catastrophic flooding - the will be, but I think wind will probably cause more overall damage.

OK then follow-up - why would non-straight-line winds be more destructive than straight-line? Same force isn't it? Perhaps it's that tornadoes' winds tend to swirl upward, and thus tend to lift more debris, than hurricane winds?