Hurricane Otis–Cat 5?
By Paul Homewood
Hurricane Otis has made landfall on the coast of southern Mexico, bringing wind speeds of up to 165mph (270km/h).
It touched down near the popular Acapulco resort just after midnight on Wednesday (06:25 GMT), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
Authorities have warned of a life-threatening storm surge and the possibility of landslides as heavy rain pelts the area.
The storm has already begun to weaken as it moves inland.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67213103
Otis is supposedly the strongest landfalling Eastern Pacific hurricane on record. But not for the first time, there is strong evidence that the wind speeds have been grossly overestimated.
The official estimate of 145 Kts (166 mph) is not an actual measurement, but the “warning intensity”, in other words simply a forecast.
http://rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/storm.asp?storm_identifier=ep182023
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2023/ep18/ep182023.update.10250458.shtml?
But according to the Digital Dvorak data from satellites, the warning intensity, was about 20 Kts higher than the actual data indicated:
http://rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/storm_experimental.asp?storm_identifier=ep182023
In other words, the satellites suggested sustained wind speeds of about 140 mph, which means it was on;y a Cat 4 hurricane.
Nor was there any evidence on the ground of 165 mph winds, even where the eye of the storm passed through:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Otis
Ventusky also suggest sustained winds of about 80 mph at ground level.
There always seems to be a tendency for hurricane forecasters to overestimate winds, either because they are afraid of underestimating them or for political reasons.
In the case of Otis, this embarrassment factor was made worse by the fact that the NHC had only forecast a weak hurricane up until the last few hours before landfall.
Cat 4 storms are of course still catastrophic, but the public have the right to the correct data.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Amusing that I was just reading that an area of the Gulf of Mexico is being designated a wind power area. I wonder how a windmill will survive a hurricane as they are struggling in the North Sea! Maybe the right hand does not see ……
Slightly off-topic: gCaptain is a daily bulletin for the marine industry. Today its first story is titled “Why the offshore wind industry is in the doldrums” . A short read but non partisan. In the same bulletin Pres. Biden’s further encouragements are covered.
“… the public have the right to know the correct data”
Indeed they do Paul, and the media shouldn’t lie about historical context either. When this was being reported hysterically by the BBC, Sky etc, the usual weasel word “unprecedented” came up repeatedly. So, it took my about 5 seconds on Wokipaedia to find out about Hurricane Pauline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Pauline.
Well, whadda you know? It was another Mexican-landfalling Category 4 hurricane. So, as ever “it’s all happened before” and the media should stop lying, not least by using by using the word “unprecedented”.
And they had to take “Pauline” off the list of names for the future out of consideration for the huge death toll.
And that in turn leads to the “Mexico” hurricane of 1959 that hit a bit further North and killed 1,800, also reassessed at Cat 4.
Just imagine if the 1987 ‘great storm’ happened again, how different the BBC’s treatment would be today. Back in 1987 Mr. Fish was laughing at a lady who suggested it was a hurricane and although the story was a pot of lies, they wouldn’t diss a female nowadays.
Even further off topic, GM have settled the autoworkers strike and at the same time seem to be rolling back production targets for E.V’s
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/10/31/gm-backtracks-on-joe-bidens-green-energy-agenda-after-investing-billions/
They hunger for records to prove climate change, when, in fact, climate EXCLUDES records. It is average weather, not the extremes.
That just ain’t so. The statistics of extreme events, just like the statistics of monthly maxima and minima are just as much part of what climatology is about as average behaviour. What is true is that the further you go into the tails of the distribution of any weather variable, the noisier become the data and the harder it is to detect trend (or any other non-stationarity pattern). The received wisdom when I first got involved back in the late 80s was that if you couldn’t see it in the mean you certainly couldn’t see it in the extremes. This lasted until 2002 after a conference in Exeter all about extremes when it became okay to use extreme events or monthly minima and maxima to do trend analysis on.
Wow! Climate ‘science’ is goofier than I thought!
‘A minimum pressure of 965Mb (28.45 inHg)’ – report quoted above.
Here it’s listed as ‘923 hPa (27.26 inHg)’ – can’t both be right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_intense_tropical_cyclones
Pix of Acapulco show trees still standing. Cat 5s get all the trees. So 965Mb probably more accurate. And the pix prove it was no Cat 5.
Before the BBC gets hysterical about Storm Babet perhaps they should look at this story from North Wales and look at attending causes.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/images-devasting-storm-babet-flooding-28022628
It seems flooding in this affected area has been affected by lack of drainage maintenance etc.
As far as I can tell the Environment Agency has never had a good reputation in relation to flood defences. Recall the flooding in the Somerset Levels whilst Cameron was PM. More recently the Grauniad reported that some 4000 flood defences were poorly maintained.
Question: Have wind and solar farms been built uphill or upwind from any place with unprecedented flooding? Do wind or solar farms change rain intensity? I have noticed that rain intensity near major roadways clearly is influenced by the presence of the roads and associated developments.
Well something left Acapulco absolutely smashed. Guessing its on the list for building back better into a 15-minute city.
Off thread but I see in today’s newspaper that our King is attending COP28 and making the opening speech. Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. How does he think this is going to affect the Keeling Curve? Does he understand the sequential futility of 27 past COPs. It’s shameful that the British Monarchy should so demean itself. His mother would have politely declined soraking
On the subject of wind, and just before I am killed by Storm Ciaran raging through Surrey at over 100mph – allegedly, John Dee has decided to look at the subject and very interesting it is so far. His findings from the data sources E-OBS and ICOADS have shown up problems BUT there is one huge issue – no sign of the 1987 hurricane. Not a trace of it at all.
Given the hysterical propaganda on Ciaran – GB News uses MetOrifice data – and my wunderground wind forecast not topping a steady 20mph I went to Windy for a look through the models. For all the legendary ‘settled science’ there is a disparity of views but what caught my eye was just how different the MetO model was. Forecasting much higher wind speeds.