Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Strongest winds gusts that I've seen have been 150 mph on a mountain top in CA, 123 mph on a mountain top in CO, 102 mph in UT, 94 mph in NV, 64 mph in NM
The October cyclone was difficult to classify, consisting of a small area of very strong (~50 kt sustained) winds embedded within a much broader environment of low pressure that was itself producing gale/tropical-storm-force winds, at least early on. The inner system possessed some of the essential characteristics of a tropical storm: it had sustained winds in excess of 34 kt, it had a well-defined center of circulation, it had a warm core, at least in the lower troposphere, and the low center itself did not lie along any frontal boundaries, at least at the time the center moved onshore. In particular, the strength, distribution, and impacts of the winds near the center of this system were indistinguishable from many other small tropical storms.
Other attributes of the system, however, argued against its classification as a tropical storm. The system's convection near the core was intermittent and of short duration, and was considered too transient to satisfy the definition's organized deep convection requirement. The transient nature of the strong inner core circulation itself also cast doubt as to whether it could be considered of synoptic scale. The vertical extent of the cyclonic circulation was limited to below about 12,000 ft, very uncharacteristic of a tropical cyclone of this strength.
We also considered whether the system should be classified as a subtropical cyclone. There were clearly mixed characteristics of extratropical and tropical cyclones present, including the presence nearby of an upper-level cold low, and the large-scale distribution of winds and convection. However, there was enough air mass contrast associated with the system to raise doubts as to whether it was truly non-frontal. The very small radius of maximum winds and occasional convection very near the center also made the system difficult to classify as a subtropical cyclone.
Nature does not always cooperate with the classification systems designed by man. There is a continuum of cyclone types in the real atmosphere, and it is often difficult to place these systems into the small number of bins that meteorologists have created for them. The 9-10 October Florida system is certainly one of these difficult cyclones. NHC’s historical record, however, requires its members to belong to either the “tropical” or “subtropical” bins, and our view in this case is that neither applies. It is simply “something else”.
