July 21st, 2014
Atlantic Hurricane Season: What We Know Can Happen — Historical Impacts: Hurricane Betsy
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
Posts Tagged ‘nat cat’
July 17th, 2014
Atlantic Hurricane Season: What We Know Can Happen — Historical Impacts: Hurricane Andrew
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
Hurricane Andrew made U.S. landfall in 1992. The storm originated from a tropical wave and experienced disruptive wind shear until arriving in the West Atlantic. Once in the West Atlantic, Andrew first reached hurricane status on the morning of August 22 and then developed explosively into a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph when it made landfall on Florida’s coast.
July 16th, 2014
Atlantic Hurricane Season: What We Know Can Happen — Historical Impacts: Hurricane Charley
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
July 15th, 2014
Chart: U.S. Landfall To Basin Ratio — Detected Hurricanes (1900-2013)
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
The chart indicates that the proportion of hurricanes counted in the Atlantic Basin and those that made landfall has been very volatile through the years. While there is indeed a weak correlation between hurricane counts in the Atlantic Basin and the number of U.S. landfalls, statistical significance is a subject of some debate in the scientific community (Coughlin et al., 2009; Dailey et al., 2009).
July 14th, 2014
2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season Part III: What Are We Preparing For Anyway?
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
James Waller, Ph.D, Research Meteorologist
Any hurricane can produce wind, surge and inland flood impacts. The severity and scope of impacts is not always consistent with ratings on the Saffir-Simpson scale, particularly for surge as we have seen with Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012).
July 10th, 2014
2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season Part II: El Niño Phenomenon
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
James Waller, Ph.D., Research Meteorologist
The El Niño phenomenon is signaled by warmer than normal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical East Pacific. The large-scale circulations associated with El Niño enhance wind shear (changing wind speed with height) in the tropical Atlantic. The enhanced wind shear disrupts tropical cyclone formation, generally associated with fewer tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Basin. The suppressing effects of El Niño are found to be strongest in the deep tropics (Kossin et al., 2010).
July 9th, 2014
U.S. & Canada Severe Thunderstorms
Posted at 4:34 PM ET
A strong and slow-moving frontal system initiated a series of severe thunderstorm events from July 5-8 affecting an area from the Canadian Prairies to the U.S. East Coast. There have been at least five fatalities.
July 9th, 2014
2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season Part I: One Never Truly Knows
Posted at 1:00 AM ET
James Waller, Ph.D, Research Meteorologist
The 2004 hurricane season was a weak El Niño year, which brought five landfalling U.S. hurricanes, four of which affected Florida.
July 8th, 2014
6.9Mw Earthquake — Southern Mexico
Posted at 3:52 PM ET
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake was reported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) about 1 mile from Puerto Madero, Mexico near the Mexico-Guatemala border on Monday. The quake occurred at 6:23 a.m. local time (11:23 UTC) on the Pacific Coast, with an initial magnitude of 7.1 but later corrected to 6.9. The quake depth was 37 miles (60 km). About 10 minor aftershocks were reported in the region triggering additional landslides.
July 7th, 2014
Update: Hurricane Arthur
Posted at 4:47 PM ET
Hurricane Arthur is the first hurricane to make U.S. landfall since 2012, and the earliest to make North Carolina landfall for any hurricane season since 1908. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Arthur made landfall in North Carolina on July 3 at about 11:15 p.m. EDT (0315 UTC), with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (161 km/hr).
