It can frustrating getting good readings on Hilton Head Island, especially for wind. The airport does report data hourly, with the exception of precipitation, which for some odd reason it doesn’t measure. While it’s a small airport, it is heavily used by general aviation and American, Delta, and United have multiple commuter jet flights to major eastern and midwestern cities. The lack of a full reporting station there is a bit puzzling. That aside, yesterday the airport was offline, for some unknown reason, from 11AM until 9PM, thus completely missing the time period when winds were peaking on the island. There are many amateur stations on the island, including mine, but few, if any, are able to get good wind readings due the heavily treed nature of Hilton Head. I have a Davis station, but my anemometer is basically worthless due to my home being surrounded by tall pines, oaks, palms, etc.
My semi-educated guess is the peak wind gusts did exceed 60mph, especially in areas of the island with southern exposure toward the ocean. At my home, I’d guess we didn’t exceed 50mph, but I’m toward the northern tip of HHI, with much more exposure to winds coming from the north or west off of Port Royal Sound and Skull Creek. After the storm, I only had a few large limbs in the yard, plus a good number of small branches and a lot of pine needles. No tree damage and none visible anywhere around the neighborhood. We also never loss power, it didn’t even flicker, which is not too surprising considering the vast majority of power & communication lines on HHI are underground. All in all, much of the island escaped pretty much unscathed by Idalia.
