Dean Third-Most Intense Hurricane Ever
Pastor Dale Morgan
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Aug 22, 12:18 AM EDT
*Dean Third-Most Intense Hurricane Ever*
By JOHN PAIN
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) -- Hurricane Dean was the third-most intense Atlantic
hurricane to make landfall since record keeping began in the 1850s,
based on its central atmospheric pressure, forecasters said.
The pressure in a hurricane's eye is often used to compare storms
throughout history because in the past, wind gauges were often damaged
or destroyed by powerful hurricanes. Now, technology exists to more
accurately measure winds, said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist with
the National Hurricane Center.
"And the damage is caused by the wind, so that's what most people look
at," he said.
But pressure also measures strength: the lower the pressure, the greater
a hurricane's power to suck in air. A hurricane's winds are blown
because higher-pressure air rushes toward the lower-pressure eye to
equalize the difference.
Typically, the lower the pressure, the faster the air speeds in. But
because of other variables in each storm, a certain pressure does not
always correspond to a specific wind speed.
Dean was a top-scale Category 5 storm at landfall Tuesday on Mexico's
Yucatan Peninsula. Its maximum sustained winds were near 165 mph and
gusts reached 200 mph. Just before landfall, a Global Positioning System
device dropped from a hurricane hunter aircraft found it had a central
pressure of 906 millibars, forecasters said.
The only other storms that hit land with a lower pressure were the 1935
Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and Hurricane Gilbert,
which hit Cancun, Mexico, in 1988, forecasters said.
Gilbert caused more than 300 deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The 1935 hurricane was responsible for more than 400 deaths in the Keys,
primarily among World War I veterans working on a highway connecting the
island chain to the mainland.
Only 10 other Category 5 storms have been known to hit land in the
Atlantic basin, including Gilbert, the 1935 hurricane, Hurricane Camille
in 1969 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992, according to the hurricane center.
Andrew had top sustained winds of 165 mph at landfall. It was the
second-most expensive hurricane in U.S. history, after Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Wilma is the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded in
terms of pressure: It was at 882 millibars when it was in the Caribbean
before it weakened ahead of landfall in the Yucatan.
The lowest pressure ever recorded in a tropical cyclone was 870
millibars in Typhoon Tip in the northwest Pacific Ocean in 1979.
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