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Hurricane Maria


Jtm12180
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My complete MARIA report: 

http://icyclone.com/upload/chases/maria/iCyclone_Chase_Report_MARIA2017.pdf

I was on the SE coast of Puerto Rico, just a few miles N of the landfall point—a perfect location to get totally right-front-quadded. Needless to say, the conditions were ferocious. The most distinctive thing about this chase? Concentric eyewalls that brought two distinct wind maxima—separated by a marked lull—on the ground. This aside, I calculated air-pressure gradients up to ~7 mb/n mi in the inner core—among the highest I’ve measured. (PATRICIA still holds the crown: I calculated gradients well over 10 mb/n mi in that one).

In terms of intensity, data, and just wow-factor, MARIA is one of my greatest chases—maybe Top 3.

 

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6 hours ago, HurricaneJosh said:

My complete MARIA report: 

http://icyclone.com/upload/chases/maria/iCyclone_Chase_Report_MARIA2017.pdf

I was on the SE coast of Puerto Rico, just a few miles N of the landfall point—a perfect location to get totally right-front-quadded. Needless to say, the conditions were ferocious. The most distinctive thing about this chase? Concentric eyewalls that brought two distinct wind maxima—separated by a marked lull—on the ground. This aside, I calculated air-pressure gradients up to ~7 mb/n mi in the inner core—among the highest I’ve measured. (PATRICIA still holds the crown: I calculated gradients well over 10 mb/n mi in that one).

In terms of intensity, data, and just wow-factor, MARIA is one of my greatest chases—maybe Top 3.

 

You saying maybe top 3 instead of being definitive makes me think Odile must have been nuts. At least that’s what I’m assuming must be the storm in question. 

 

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18 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

yea wut? Crazy Mesos

 

Direction changes looked too fast to be mesos, it changed at least 5 times in 3 minutes.   My guess is it probably has something to do with the 1500ft ridge to the south of Yabucca disrupting the airflow.

58 seconds is the strongest gust, parked cars were skidding around.

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  • 3 months later...
On 11/19/2017 at 11:55 AM, NWLinnCountyIA said:

Gonna have to go with Patricia and Haiyan as my guesses if Maria is numero 3. If not, maybe dujuan(I think that's the name) in 3rd?

Sorry to be responding three months later! Anyhoo, you're clearly very familiar with my work, because yeah, those are my Top 3 (in chronological order): HAIYAN, PATRICIA, and MARIA. They're kind of in their own special category in terms of how violent and just OMG they were.

ODILE would be a solid and undisputed No. 4. In some ways maybe it deserves to be in the Top 3. It was just a really intense, edgy hurricane. The classification as Cat 3 doesn't do it justice. That sh*t was vicious.

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  • 5 weeks later...

The NHC has released its Tropical Cyclone Report for Maria:

• Third costliest hurricane in US history.

• Sixth fastest period of rapid intensification recorded in the Atlantic Basin.

• Category 5, 145 kts sustained landfall over Dominica.

• Set minimum pressure record east of 70°W (908 mb) that had only been set a couple weeks prior by Irma (914 mb).

• Category 4, 135 kts sustained landfall over southeast Puerto Rico near Yabucoa. This makes Maria the most intense cyclone landfall in wind speed on US soil since Charley (130 kts) in 2004 and Andrew (145 kts) in 1992, and the strongest for PR proper since the Segundo San Felipe Hurricane of 1928. They mention some of the higher terrain probably did experience category 5 wind.

• 31 deaths in Dominica with 34 missing. 65 deaths in PR, though they mention this number may rise based on an ongoing federal investigation.

Full PDF of report.

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  • 1 month later...

It's important to note here that though the official numbers attributed to direct deaths reported by Puerto Rico governmental and civil agencies may have also been incorrect (this is still under investigation), these new estimates by the Harvard Medical peer-reviewed study are attributed to indirect deaths (i.e. deaths due to health-related complications over inaccessible electricity, medicine, basic survival necessities, etc.). An ongoing study and investigation is also being done by George Washington University as well, which was supposed to be out in May, but has been delayed.

 

It can be debated whether indirect deaths should be attributed to the meteorological-related phenomenon by the hurricane. Personally, I feel like it should be included alongside direct deaths, but kept seperate. Even within a range of acceptable error, these tolls can never be more accurate than estimates due to the logistics of obtaining the data. However, if persons die due to having no access to electricity, medical or basic survival necessities, these are no less signficiant and still due to the impact of the hurricane. Include those estimates in reported numbers, but distinguish direct and indirect, as certainly a combination of factors (i.e. chronic illnesses, poor infrastructure, aid and assistance response time) are also contributing to the deaths beyond meteorological hazards. Again, the loss of life is no less significant and still should be included and attributed to the hurricane due to overwhelming evidence of an increased mortality rate.

 

It will be interesting to see GWU's results as well.

 

Edit: Grammatical.

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  • 2 months later...
On ‎10‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 2:56 PM, HurricaneJosh said:

Max winds in a hurricane happen in narrow streaks. Winds will vary greatly even within one city. (See CELIA 1970 in Corpus Christi for good example of this.)

Whether or not folks can stand on downwind balconies or in parking structures is not a good way of assessing wind speeds. In Cat-5 Super Typhoon HAIYAN, I stood on a balcony during the worst of it. (It was stupid and I almost got killed, but I did it.)

Thank you so much, Steve! I really appreciate that. I was really tortured about the length, and in the end, I'm glad I included those elements. I'm psyched you feel like they add to it. Awesome.

Have you had a chance to see the Doppler stuff from hurricane Harvey. They got great images of vortices inside the eyewall and the streaks that you are referring to. They were discussing this along with showing the images on TWC and it was pretty crazy how these vorts ramped up to tornado like speeds and caused major damage in those streaks.

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