October 19, 2005
-
A Category FIVE? Wilma zoomed from a two to a five overnight?
Mercy Maud! At least it doesn't seem to be terribly well
organized, though with winds of 175 mph and the lowest (unofficially)
recorded barometric pressure, it mayn't need to be. I don't know
much about hurricanes...if it gets all tightly organized, with a
recognizable pinwheel shape, would that cause it to strengthen, or is it the reverse?
Comments (3)
Yeah, all the weather lately is making me glad I'm not a dispensationalist. I'd be checking for end-times prophecies about now or something.
I don't know about that, but the good news is that Cat 5's simply don't stay Cat 5's in mid-October. There's not enough heat energy around to sustain that kind of force -- it all gets used up in blowing those winds around, for a little while.
That's what happened with Rita -- the water temps just couldn't sustain that kind of force by the time she rolled around.
The tighter the eye, the stronger the hurricane. Interestingly, there was an article in Rich's "EOS" magazine recently that showed a signigicant correlation between mean ocean height and where a hurricane is likely to go. That could make forecasting landfalls much easier, and much earlier. But there are still alot of other variables in there. it's all within the realm of "normal" though-- when we start having hurricanes off Florida and Texas in December, then we can start worrying.
Comments are closed.