I always wonder where these wind measurements come from. I know about ships and buoys and dropsondes however when the storms pass airports I just check the Metar data and there is always a significant difference. I had this discussion with a NHC forecaster after Michael hit Mexico Beach about an actual land station very close that never showed winds nearly as strong. The forecaster took my questions as an afront and got upset that they were being questioned. That interchange did not increase my trust in NHC.
Beryl's intensity estimates this week have been derived almost entirely from flight-level winds and surface winds estimates from recon aircraft. If it had been based on appearances or satellite estimates, the winds would have been lower. But this is what the plane data said.
As always, any encounter with land friction will slow down those winds by 10-15% or so, even on the immediate coast. The difficulty in observing and verifying maximum winds is one reason why we may move away from wind-based classification of tropical systems in the future, potentially in the direction of minimum pressure.
I always wonder where these wind measurements come from. I know about ships and buoys and dropsondes however when the storms pass airports I just check the Metar data and there is always a significant difference. I had this discussion with a NHC forecaster after Michael hit Mexico Beach about an actual land station very close that never showed winds nearly as strong. The forecaster took my questions as an afront and got upset that they were being questioned. That interchange did not increase my trust in NHC.
Beryl's intensity estimates this week have been derived almost entirely from flight-level winds and surface winds estimates from recon aircraft. If it had been based on appearances or satellite estimates, the winds would have been lower. But this is what the plane data said.
As always, any encounter with land friction will slow down those winds by 10-15% or so, even on the immediate coast. The difficulty in observing and verifying maximum winds is one reason why we may move away from wind-based classification of tropical systems in the future, potentially in the direction of minimum pressure.
Thanks for the explanation Ryan, to some degree what I had thought, I appreciate it.
hence the recent Supreme Court decision, Chevron rule...thank goodness - bureaucrata very hard to get to , if they go off...