Okay guys, Ive been watching this so called Hurricane closely the last 40 hours and have NOT seen anything that warrants Dorian being called a hurricane. I have utilized my favorite resources the NDBC, windy.com, and the NOAA surface map along with small doses of watching the weather channel. Just looking at the wind speeds and wave heights of the various buoys was enough to solidify my opinion, but I kept rooting around other sources. In my opinion, coupled with my 40 years plus of seagoing experience and having been in 4 hurricanes and the outskirts of many others, I believe the other media outlets have sensationalized and embellished the storm to present a false narrative to increase ratings, instill fear in the masses, promote consumerism for an approaching storm (go out and buy shi#), and to advance the climate change agenda. Also, just analyzing the eye roughly the last 36 hours, it seemed to be around 35-40 miles in diameter and didnt seem to have the typical intregrity that a well organized storm has.
I consider myself a purdeee weather savy mariner having sailed in the North Pacific Ocean, Bearing Sea, 25 plus years of northeast and east coast towing. I welcome and respect ALL feedback from you guys!
I’m talking about roughly the last 48 hours only. I live in the Hampton Roads area so I was monitoring the progress of the storm once it turned north. No doubt it was a bad mama jamma when it hit the Bahamas.
Don’t have to rely on the media, just go right the source, in this case NWS/NHC.
Two things make Dorian a hurricane, the wind speed, max sustained surface winds over 64 kts.
Hurricane / Typhoon:
A tropical cyclone in which the maximum sustained surface wind (using the U.S. 1-minute average) is 64 kt (74 mph or 119 km/hr) or more. The term hurricane is used for Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones east of the International Dateline to the Greenwich Meridian. The term typhoon is used for Pacific tropical cyclones north of the Equator west of the International Dateline.
The second is it has tropical characteristics,
Tropical Cyclone:
A warm-core non-frontal synoptic-scale cyclone, originating over tropical or subtropical waters, with organized deep convection and a closed surface wind circulation about a well-defined center. Once formed, a tropical cyclone is maintained by the extraction of heat energy from the ocean at high temperature and heat export at the low temperatures of the upper troposphere. In this they differ from extratropical cyclones, which derive their energy from horizontal temperature contrasts in the atmosphere (baroclinic effects).
If Dorian loses it’s tropical characteristics it will be called extratropical, this will be the case if it retains hurricane force winds or not,
A good friend of mine lives in Georgetown, SC, about 50 miles up the coast from Charleston, and was there for Hugo in 1989 and I was in Charleston, SC for Hugo. He called me as Dorian was rolling through Georgetown and said there very minimal trees down and other associated damage with Dorian, which is why I started delving into it and paying more attention to it plus it was headed towards the barn. I did see some isolated pictures and video of a few trees down, but nothing like what we experienced during Hugo. Hugo left Charleston, the area just south to Edisto Island north to McClellanville, SC like a war zone. Took me 3 weeks to get power back. Hugo was on a different course and speed compared to Dorian, but the lack of damage and storm surge around there doesn’t reflect a Cat 2 or 3.
Also, thanks for the positions, definitions, and parameters for storms. I did see all that information, but just didn’t seem plausible. Of course, the media and gooberment officials won’t lie 2 us. Iraq has WMD’s.
I believe a misstyped 70 mph instead of putting knots - sorry 4 being a knot head on that. I just NEVER saw the sustained 64 kt threshold. I knew I would get slammed purdeee hard by you guys, but I welcome both barrels with double-ought buckshot.
Hugo was a major hurricane that slammed directly into charleston so what is your point? This was a Coast hugger. I’m happy with the outcome of this storm and you should be too, but it was definitely a hurricane and I could show you alone pictures of major tree damage and cars crushed.
In complete agreement! It never touched land in the states until this am southwest of Hatteras, which kept the good side of the storm (navigable semi-circle) on the shore side. I just thought the media kept fanning the flames and over playing their hand.
Just imagine the Long Island Express hurricane from 1938 that hit Long Island and Rhode Island slamming ashore somewhere in the future with all the development on the east coast…that would be cataclysmic. Excellent book to read about that storm!!!
So your anecdotal experience of a different storm from 1994, along with your gut feeling, lead you to believe this wasn’t a hurricane for the last 2 days?
You should write a paper on it and submit to a peer-reviewed journal. Post up the results on here.
I live on Fripp Island , barrier island south of Charleston. We stayed home for the storm.
Our island experienced wind gusts over 90mph.
Approx 30 large trees down.
So I’d say having been through a few major hurricanes myself … this was in fact a real live hurricane. Cat 2 when it passed us.
That said , we were being told by the weather preachers we would have storm surge in excess of 7-9’ on top of our high tide which would have put a large part of our island under water … thankfully there was next to no storm surge here. Just normal high tide with rain.
While I’m grateful all I had to do was cut up some trees and clean up the yard , ALL of the weather sources I checked missed the storm surge by a mile.
Was this Hype for ratings , global warming BS , or just a miss
In general storm surge forecast are subject to large errors just due to the nature of problem. I’ve never had a reason to look into them that much but that’s my understanding at least.
Also I believe the storm surge forecast are worse case scenario rather than most likely. I’m sure there is an explanation of how the forecasts are done on the internet somewhere. It’s not a secret.
