ERC at landfall?

[flarrfan]

I heard one professional met on TV tonight voicing what I was thinking watching the radar at eye landfall this morning...it looked to me like the storm was starting an ERC just before it hit land. I thought about posting at the time, but the prevailing view seemed to be that it was just land interaction. I really thought I saw an attempt at a new eyewall just before it hit land, though, and apparently someone else who knows thought the same thing. It's a chilling thought to speculate how much worse this might have been if that really was an ERC and it had started six to eight hours earlier. A lot of things went right for NO today, as bad as the results actually are. This could have been the storm of the millenium instead of just the storm of the century --- so far.

[ohiostorm]

Yeah the storm was in fact going through an ERC at prior to landfall. It was actually getting its act back together at landfall. Thats why we had the huge surge. If the storm wouldve done this 12 hours back, then we wouldve seen a whole different story.

[krysof]

It was, at landfall, powerful reds developed on the west sides, the eye shrunk as well

[ohiostorm]

Second eyewall was forming.

[deltadog03]

thats why these canes all have weakned before landfall....just think if this would have came in as a cat 5 and 175mph
WOW...it did enough damage like this

[djtil]

yes, luckily an ewrc had started about 12 hours before landfall, taking the storm from 175mph to around 140mph.......if this had not happened the news would have been incomprehensible.

[StormWarning1]

I don't see any reports of sustained CAT 4 winds. Most likely it weakened to a CAT 3.

The storm surge was definetly CAT 5 territory.

This is the 3rd 2005 major hurricane with winds well below what you would expect for the low barometric pressure.

[djtil]

based on recon it was definitely a cat 4 upon initial landfall and then weakened to a cat 3 in the nola area as well as 2nd miss landfall.

the very se la coast is not going to have a wide array of actual measurments.....

[Scorpion]

Well NOLA never got Cat 3 or 4 winds anyway as it was on the western eyewall. It is very likely it stayed a 4 up to MS as the pressure was 927 and SFMR still recorded very high winds.

[brunota2003]

My friend Mark Sudduth did record these in Gulfport, MS: They were able to collect good wind data from the Tahoe of wind gusts of 137, 114, and 107 miles per hour through the day.

[Jim Cantore]

I saw a little dry air around it too

ERC though was most of this weakening

[BigA]

Does anyone have a good satellite loop of what the storm looked like as it was making landfall? A radar loop would be good too. Thanks Prayers for all those who got hit

[StormWarning1]

I think the dry air may have caused most of the weakening. The western side of the storm was really weak for a CAT 4 and that is where the dry air was working in from.

The eye opened om the South and West sides prior to landfall.

[wxmann_91]

IMO there is absolutely NO evidence to support that this was undergoing a ERC at landfall. The recon reports did not support it, and the "outer eye" was actually a dry pocket where dry air had entrained into Katrina.

Not everything is because of a ERC. I learned that during Emily and right before it made landfall on the Yucatan.

[Hunter74]

I have a hard time believing dry air alnone did that much damage, I believe it was a more like a combo of some dry air and ERC.....

[djtil]

there most certainly was evidence of concentric eyewalls both in radar and wind maxima data. i know derek ortt and another pro both verified that in a thread i was in last night.