re: Storm Update:- Ida Moves Away - The Cleanup Begins...

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If the timetable holds at least it will be daylight. I hate those gd night storms.

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I hate those gd night storms.

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I find that hard to believe. I watched dozens of thosebweather stations and the highest wind gust I saw was in Port Fourchon at 108.

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NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - An official report released on May 11 has upgraded the windspeed of Hurricane Zeta to 115 mph in a small area near the Louisiana coast, upgrading it to a Category 3 storm.

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However, the highest winds were observed on the Slidell, Louisiana, WSR-88D radar (KLIX). Radial velocity data from KLIX showed 10-bin (~0.25 km per bin) average radar velocities of 125 kt at 2031 and 2033 UTC, indicating a large area of strong winds, with peak 4-bin velocities of 127 kt for 4 volume scans centered around 2030 UTC at heights between 9,500 and 10,000 ft. These data would normally correspond to an intensity of around 110 kt using the typical dropsonde-based wind reductions from a height of around 700 mb/10,000 ft. However, the available data suggest that these typical flight-level to surface wind reductions were not realized in the later stages of Zeta, possibly since the eye was broken in the southeastern quadrant. A dropsonde at 1840 UTC measured a 110 kt average wind in the lowest 150 meters in the northeastern quadrant, which corresponds to an intensity of 90–95 kt. This dropsonde was near the area where 700-mb flight-level winds were 119 kt, and the resulting ratio of the surface wind estimate from the dropsonde to the flight-level winds was roughly 80%. Using this reduction factor for the radar-derived winds (125–127 kt, which were near 700 mb) results in an intensity estimate of 100 kt at landfall. It is also worth noting that prior to landfall the pressure fell 3 mb after the aircraft data around 1840 UTC that supported an intensity of 95 kt. While a 5-kt change is typical for post-analysis best track intensity changes, this increase in Zeta’s peak intensity crosses the threshold from Category 2 to Category 3. However, these Category 3 sustained winds were likely experienced over only a very small area at and near the coast near the landfall location, and this change in the estimated landfall intensity is of little practical significance in terms of the impacts associated with the storm there. It is also important to emphasize that NHC’s intensity analysis uncertainty is about +/- 10%, and the atypical structure of Zeta’s inner core at and prior to landfall also contributed to the uncertainty in this case.

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