HRD Wind Analysis of Rita's Winds at Landfall

[wxman57]

The Hurricane Research Division has detailed graphics on Rita's wind speeds at various times along its path. They generally put together a chart that shows the path of various winds in mph and knots. That chart's not there now, but they do have a graphic that shows wind speed contours for the time of landfall. Note that the max winds at landfall were analyzed as 96 kts - 111 mph, making Rita just barely a Cat 3 at landfall (and weakening).

Here's the Rita Page:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Storm_page ... /wind.html

Here's the map for 2:30am Saturday, at landfall:
ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/hwind/2 ... l04deg.png

Here's a map for 3 hours after landfall:
ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/hwind/2 ... l04deg.png

Those maps are in knots. To convert to mph, multiply by 1.152. Basically, 35 kts = 39 mph = TS force. 35 kt winds just BARELY brushed eastern Harris County (Houston). So much of Houston didn't even see tropical storm force sustained 1-minute wind speeds. We did see gusts of 40-55 mph, though. Even Beaumont may not have seen sustained hurricane force winds. The western side of Rita was weakening quickly at landfall. I did see a 62 kt (72 mph) wind at Beaumont airport as Rita passed, pretty close to hurricane force.

[P.K.]

This was the highest reading I saw from that airport.

KBPT 240853Z AUTO 34055G91KT 1/4SM FG SCT001 BKN006 OVC011 24/ RMK AO2 PK WND
33091/0847 SLPNO P0249 60460 T0239 TSNO $=

[HurryKane]

Thanks for the links!

[Derek Ortt]

what we saw on sat morning shows just how destructive a marginal cat 3 hurricane can be, and contrary to some beliefs, it does not take a strong cat 4 or cat 5 to cause horrific damage