TEXAS TROPICS

In a recent blog entry I talked about the strongest hurricanes there are, the CATEGORY FIVE . Since our emphasis here at Texas Tropics is, of course, tropical systems affecting Texas, I thought I'd talk about the strongest systems to ever make Texas landfall. There has never been a hurricane at category 5 strength make landfall in Texas. At least in recorded history (since 1851), that is. There have been a couple that have come close though. There have been 5 hurricanes that have made Texas landfall with winds of at least 140 mph. There's been just 6 hurricanes to make Texas landfall with pressure lower than 940 millibars. I'll save the strongest, most powerful Texas landfalls for last. 5th on the list for lowest pressure, and one of the 5 to make landfall with at least 140 mph winds was the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 . To this day the 1900 storm is the deadliest U.S. natural disaster ever, killing an estimated 8,000-12,000 people. This death toll could have been muc...

Forecasting the weather is one of the most difficult jobs one could set out to do. At least in terms of getting it right. In fact it's so hard to do that people joke about how they wish they had a job where they could be wrong 75% of the time and still keep their job. Earth is a very big planet. Not by Jupiter standards of course, but still plenty big, and a million things factor into our weather. From ocean currents, to the atmosphere, to volcanic activity, to the tilt of the earth relative to the sun, to the sun itself affecting our weather, there's a whole lot going on that makes up our weather. Even with the technology we have available here in the 21st century, predicting Mother Nature is far from an exact science. And technology we do have now. We've come a long way from relying on the Farmer's Almanac to make weather predictions. Now we have satellites all over the globe giving us a view of every inch of the planet and all the weather taking place all at the same...

The Saffir-Simpson scale is what is used to measure the intensity of hurricanes, which are defined by 5 categories, ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being minimal in strength and damage potential, and 5 being the most powerful with catastrophic damage potential. Sustained winds of a tropical cyclone that are 74 mph or greater, classify a tropical cyclone as a hurricane. In the Western hemisphere, that is. Elsewhere around the world they're called Typhoons. Hurricane classifications in our part of the world: Category 1 - winds of 74-95 mph Category 2 - winds of 96-110 mph Category 3 - winds of 111-129 mph Category 4 - winds of 130-156 mph Category 5 - winds greater than 157 mph The scale only goes to category 5 because the scale was created to measure potential damage to human made structures. Once you get past a certain threshold, in this case sustained winds of 157 mph or greater, it doesn't really matter how much stronger the winds get, the damage on human made structures is basi...