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Hurricane Ike which was only a category 2 storm made landfall in Texas and moved  north through the Ohio valley yesterday proves that the rating doesn’t tell the whole story.  They’re saying it caused 30 billion dollars n damage and has caused at least 30 fatalities.

From what I’ve read it brought  in a  pretty high storm surge over a large area.  What really made this storm was the size of it I think.  Instead of getting stronger winds it expanded in size after hitting Cuba and looked like at one point it was affecting almost the entire Gulf of Mexico

Even after landfall it’s fast speed and taking a while to wind down brought strong winds all the way into the Great lakes states as it merged with a cold front.  It was an amazing storm to watch.

I think a lesson to learn from this storm is that it’s probably not a good idea to build on barrier islands but we’ll never learn that.  I really would never want to have my permanent house on one of these types of islands.

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Hurricane Ike has maximum sustained winds near 100 miles per hour right now but the real story is it’s size.  It’s a big storm with hurricane force winds extending up to 115 miles from the center.   Tropical storm force winds extend up to 255 miles from the center.

The minimum pressure (945 millibars) is borderline low enough to support a category 4 storm but I imagine the size of the whole storm is keeping the gradient from being tight enough to cause the winds.

Another interesting storm for this year.

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The tropics in the Atlantic basin are still active but it is near the peak of the season.  At this point there are two tropical storms and a major hurricane.

Tropical storm Hanna is the closest to affecting land and should move on shore in the Carolinas and move up the coast.  It really doesn’t look that well organized right now as it’s being influenced by sheer.  Hopefully it stays  further east and doesn’t give us much rain.  Although it’s not that impressive it should be fun to watch it make landfall.

Further out in the Atlantic is tropical storm Josephine.  This one also doesn’t look that great either and really isn’t forecast to have much of a change in strength.  It’s so far east I would guess it’ll never reach the east coast.

The really interesting storm is hurricane Ike.  This storm has rapidly deepened. from a tropical storm yesterday morning to a Hurricane this morning with maximum winds of 145 mph and minimum pressure of 935 millibars.  This one will be really interesting when it gets close enough for the recon planes to fly into it.  I can’t wait to see what the really find.  it just looks awesome on satellite images right now.  This storm is a great example of what makes weather so interesting to me.

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