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...

Last year's hurricane season (2021) saw the number of named storms fall well short of the record number of 30 storms we had in 2020. The 21 named storms last year, however, were still the 3rd most ever in a season, and it marked the 2nd year in a row, 3rd time ever, that the seasonal storm name list was exhausted. That list has 21 names every year, using a name for every letter of the English alphabet except the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. The 21 storms last year, following the 30 storm record season of 2020, easily broke the record for the number of named storms in a 2 year period. That record now stands at 51. The record for a 3 year period was also broken. That now stands at 69, falling 1 storm short of the previous record for number of storms in a 4 year period, which was shattered last year and now sits at 84. 84 storms in the last 4 years! The entire decade of the 1980's had 93 storms. Despite the extremely heavy activity in the tropics, particularly recently, prediction o...

As the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season technically comes to a close, last official day November 30, we look back on the effects the season had here in the state of Texas, since this is Texas Tropics . There wasn't a lot of action for the Lone Star state in 2021. Just one named system made landfall in Texas, and it was a hurricane, but other than that, not a whole lot going on, particularly for a season that saw 21 named storms, 3rd most ever. Things did look like they'd be getting off to an ominous start when the 2nd Invest of the season formed in the western Gulf of Mexico in mid May, a good 10, 12 days before the official start of the hurricane season. Had this system developed, it would have been the 1st tropical storm to EVER make Texas landfall in the off-season. (Dec-May). Fortunately, this system pretty much dissipated before it came ashore near Matagorda Bay.  May Invest 91L By June 11th, the very next Invest (92L) was stirring down in the Bay of Campeche. Early on there...

Hurricane Sam has been one of the most impressive storms to come along in a while. Sam formed on the 23rd of September, became a hurricane the next day, and became a major hurricane the day after that, September 25th. Sam has maintained the status of a major hurricane, cat 3 or better, ever since. A full week now of winds of 115 mph or higher. And it's mostly been higher. Sam becomes the 8th hurricane in the sattelite era ( since 1966 ), to maintain cat 3 status or higher for 7 days or more. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 holds the record at 10 days. And Sam is expected to remain at cat 3 until at least early on Sunday ( Oct. 3 ). Sam hit cat 4 status on the 26th, and on that same day, hit what is estimated to be it's peak intensity with winds of 155 mph. Technically, winds of 156 mph and greater put you in cat 5 territory. Sam could very well have been a cat 5 at that time, but it was a little too far out in the open ocean for recon to be there at that time. With category 5 hurricanes...

When it comes to storm names in the Atlantic, there may not be any more feared than those that start with the letter "I". And that's because of the 93 storm names that have been retired, nearly 12% have started with the letter "I". And if you count the Greek letter Iota, which was retired last year that isn't officially an "I" storm, that's 13% of the retired names starting with an "I". But Iota isn't really a name, it's a Greek letter, so we won't count it. For a storm name to be retired, it has to cause a lot of deaths and/or significant and lasting damage somewhere. Examples of some of the more memorable retired names, Carla in 1961, Camille in '69, Andrew in '92, Katrina in 2005, and Harvey in 2017. Those were all some powerful hurricanes that caused a lot of damage and death. Storms that we still talk about all of these years later. And a storm doesn't have to be powerful to get retired. Tropical storm All...