Lab #16 – Tracking Hurricanes
Hurricanes are classified according
to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which categorizes the storms from one to five
depending on sustained wind speed, height of storm surge, and extent of damage.
Some of the specifics for each hurricane category are listed in Table 1. The
National Weather Service issues a hurricane watch when there is a threat of
hurricane conditions within 24 to 36 hours. They issue a hurricane warning if
hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours.
Table
1
|
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
|
|
|
|
Category
|
Wind Speed (km/h)
|
Effects
|
|
One
|
119-153
|
No real damage
|
|
Two
|
154-177
|
Some roof and window damage
|
|
Three
|
178-209
|
Some structural damage to small residences; mobile homes
destroyed
|
|
Four
|
210-249
|
Extensive building failures
|
|
Five
|
greater than 249
|
Complete roof failure on buildings; some complete building
failures
|
Problem
How would a hurricane negatively impact New York City?
Hypothesis
Materials
Pencil
Procedure
Part
A—Historical Hurricanes
- Familiarize yourself with the classifications of hurricanes
according to the Saffir-Simpson Scale in Table 1.
- Read about some major hurricanes of the past, which are described
in the Data and Observations section.
- Use the Saffir-Simpson Scale to classify each of the historical
hurricanes described in the Data and Observations section. Write the
category number in the space provided next to each description.
Part
B—Hurricane Tracking
- Use the data in Table 2 to plot the course of a hurricane. Start by
plotting the storm's location on Day 1 on the Hurricane Tracking Chart in
Figure 1.Mark the hurricane's location with a dot, and label it as Day 1.
- Considering only wind speed, classify the storm as a tropical storm
or a hurricane. If the wind speed is less than 119 km/h, consider it a
tropical storm. If the wind speed is 119 km/h or more, use the
Saffir-Simpson Scale to decide what category describes the hurricane on
this day. Write your observations in Table 2.
- Plot the storm's location at Day 2, label the dot, and connect the
two dots with a straight line. Classify the storm as described in step 2.
- Consider that you are a forecaster with the National Weather
Service. You must issue a hurricane warning to any land 24 hours before
the center of a hurricane passes over it. Decide if you should issue a
warning on Day 2. If yes, what areas would you warn? Write your
observations in Table 2.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the storm's duration.
Analysis
- Which of the storms described in Part A were category five
hurricanes?
- What information did you use to classify each of the storms?
- Describe the conditions that led you to issue a hurricane warning.
- Did the center of the storm pass over the areas to which you
decided to issue warnings?
- When did the hurricane tracked in Part B reach the status of a
category three hurricane? (Hint: The data presented in Table 3
shows one measurement for each day of the storm.)
- Did the hurricane that you tracked in Part B show characteristics
of every category described by the Saffir-Simpson scale?
Data
and Observations
- ____ Hurricane Fran moved into North
Carolina's southern coast in September 1996. Total damages from the
hurricane exceeded $5 billion. Hurricane Fran had sustained winds of
approximately 184 km/h and gusts as high as 200 km/h.
- ____ The Halloween Storm of 1991
has been called the "perfect storm." It packed sustained winds
of 120 km/h.
- ____ Hurricane Bertha pounded the
southeast coastline as well as the Bahamas in July 1996. The storm had
winds peaking at 184 km/h.
- ____ When Hurricane Andrew slammed
southern Florida in August 1992, it was the most costly natural disaster
in United States history, with about $26 billion in damage. The storm
killed 26 people and destroyed more than 25,000 homes. Its wind speeds
are now thought to have reached up to 265 km/h.
- ____ Hurricane Celia hit Texas in
August 1970, causing $1.6 billion in damage. The storm was characterized
by very high winds that damaged an airport and destroyed a nearby mobile
home park. Its highest estimated wind speed was around 257 km/h.
- ____ Hurricane Camille, which hit
the Gulf Coast and then swerved east toward the Carolinas in August 1969,
was the fifth most costly disaster in United States history with damages
of $5.2 billion. Camille caused the death of 250 people. Its sustained
wind speeds reached 320 km/h.
- ____ Hurricane Katrina, which
devastated New Orleans in 2005 was
the costliest hurricane,
as well as one of the five deadliest,
in the history of the United States. Among
recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. Katrina
made landfall Aug. 29 with top sustained wind of about 201 km/h.
|
Table
2
|
Day
|
Latitude (°N)
|
Longitude (°W)
|
Wind speed (km/h)
|
Type of Storm
|
Issue warning? Where?
|
|
1
|
15
|
47
|
56
|
|
|
|
2
|
17
|
53
|
80
|
|
|
|
3
|
18
|
57
|
112
|
|
|
|
4
|
21
|
60
|
144
|
|
|
|
5
|
23
|
64
|
160
|
|
|
|
6
|
23
|
69
|
232
|
|
|
|
7
|
25
|
74
|
216
|
|
|
|
8
|
27
|
78
|
216
|
|
|
|
9
|
32
|
79
|
168
|
|
|
|
10
|
41
|
74
|
96
|
|
|
|
11
|
45
|
67
|
72
|
|
|
|
12
|
48
|
56
|
64
|
|
|
Conclusion
A
history of hurricanes in New York—including the day in 1893 that Hog Island
disappeared for good.
●
Published Sep 4, 2005
Last week, as the news from New Orleans kept getting worse,
New York found itself in the position of watching another American city’s
catastrophe, and giving back some of what was extended to us—in money and
worry—four years ago. Despite the horrors we’ve seen, this was not one we could
easily imagine.
But
our own hurricane history is more tumultuous than many New Yorkers might think.
In 1821, when a major hurricane made a direct hit on Manhattan, stunned
residents recorded sea levels rising as fast as thirteen feet in a single hour
down where there’s now Battery Park City. Everything was flooded south of Canal
Street. The storm struck at low tide, though, and, according to Queens College
professor Nicholas Coch, a coastal geologist who calls himself a “forensic Hurricanologist,”
that’s “the only thing that saved the city.”
Then
there’s Hog Island. The pig-shaped mile-long barrier island was off the
southern coast of the Rock aways. After the Civil War, developers built saloons
and bathhouses on it, and Hog Island became a Gilded Age version of the
Hamptons. The city’s political bosses and business elite used the place as a
kind of beachy annex of Tammany Hall. That all ended on the night of August 23,
1893, when a terrifying Category 2 hurricane made landfall on the swamp that is
now JFK airport.
The
hurricane was a major event. All six front-page columns of the August 25, 1893,
New York Times were dedicated to the “unexampled fury” of the
“West Indian monster.” The storm sunk dozens of boats and killed scores of
sailors. In Central Park, hundreds of trees were uprooted, and gangs of Italian
immigrant boys “roamed . . . in the early hours of the morning collecting the
dead sparrows and plucking them of their feathers.” Apparently looting was not
yet in vogue. The brand-new Metropolitan Life building on Madison Avenue was
severely damaged. And a 30-foot storm surge swept across southern Brooklyn and
Queens, destroying virtually every man-made structure in its path. These days,
evacuation plans are in place, officials said last week. But “try to tell
someone in Sheepshead Bay that they have to evacuate immediately because within
the next 24 hours they’ll have 30 feet of storm surge,” says Mike Lee, director
of Watch Command at the New York City Office of Emergency Management. “They’ll
laugh at you. I mean, I barely even believe it.”
As
for Hog Island, “it largely disappeared that night,” Coch says. “As far as I
know, it is the only incidence of the removal of an entire island by a
hurricane.”
Statistically,
the New York area is hit by one of these monster storms every 75 years or so;
“it’s just a matter of time,” says Lee. After Hog Island, the next big one came
a little ahead of schedule, the “Long Island Express” of 1938, with
183-mile-per-hour winds. At the time, Long Island wasn’t a densely populated
suburban sprawl. The same hurricane today would cause incredible havoc.
Hurricane Carol, a Category 3 storm that hit eastern Long Island and came
ashore in Connecticut in 1954, mostly missed the city (even as it inundated
downtown Providence, Rhode Island, under twelve feet of water).
Were
another Long Island Express to barrel in, AIR Worldwide Corporation, an
insurance-industry analyst, estimates $11.6 billion in New York losses alone.
On AIR’s list of “the top ten worst places for an extreme hurricane to strike,”
New York City is No. 2, behind only Miami. New Orleans is ranked fifth.
