When all is done I think it was a cat 2 at lanfall as said

[rdcrds]

On cnn the guy in the the NE eye wall said it himself that francis was much worse.I think a guy who is right in the path of the wrost of it and who was in francis also.

I am not saying this storm was weak as any hurrucane is bad but this over hype of still 135 mph winds is ratings casting

[dennis1x1]

well that is good news concerning gulf shores then....as the worst has come ashore......he knows more about whats going on in gulf shores than any of us for sure.

[Anonymous]

Yes..in fact..he stated he is being sheltered by a building. Hardly able to get any kind of accurate assesment from that position.

Its kind of funny actually.
In Frances, he was in the open and got knocked around. Right now he is behind a sturdy conrete building (Notice the downed tree in front of him, barely any ruffling leaves!), yet he is STILL getting knocked around. Folks don't downplay Frances because of what this reporter is stating.

[Sanibel]

Exactly. Gary Tuchman said this hurricane isn't nearly as bad as Frances. However, Gary is standing behind a concrete hotel in the lee of the winds. He needs to hike up to the roof of that hotel with a hand-held anemometer. I doubt he would make it up there.

[PurdueWx80]

Right..because the NHC gets good ratings for calling Ivan a 135 mph, Cat 4 hurricane. And it was Frances, not Francis.

[ncsandman]

MY opinion is, that this thing was way over rated, but, time will tell. But it is BIG

[Lockhart]

Even if Ivan ends up 100/110 on landfall, that in no way means people have been pretending he's worse than he was. As for how bad he is, why not wait until we get more than one reporter's viewpoint? Like, maybe, technical data from measuring instruments?

I'm all for saying "I think this is the case", but imputing lies based on nothing is just wrong.

[Windy]

You see, this is such funny hubris. An "I told you so" post before the data comes in that verifies that "you told us so". On top of that, even if "you told us so", the fact that you were able to forecast storm strength a week out is much much much more likely to do with LUCK, not skill, since even the best forecasters in the world and the fastest supercomputers cannot tell what Cataglory a storm will be on landfall a week out.

[logybogy]

The storm is unraveling. The highest winds are NOT directly in the eyewall. They are in the intense feeder bands north and east of the center. They are over the ocean right now and will spiral up into Pensacola.

When all is said and done, I think that's where we will find the Cat 3/4 winds.

[Psychonaut777]

Its barely on land .. who knows what it can do over the next couple hours.

[Sanibel]

The last official reports from Gulf Shores was that roofs were being ripped off many houses and the fire station was bashed in with the roof off. They also said no rescue would be done for those who stayed...

[dennis1x1]

the recon reports of nothing higher than 125 the last 10 hours coupled with the falling apart of the eye before landfall makes all these claims possible......but still....until damage is assessed its impossible to know for sure.

it is good to see that the complete annhilation that some swore by does not appear to be happening as Gary is still reporting.

"cat 4 in feeder bands".....and i thought i had heard it all!!

[PurdueWx80]

Pensacola is nowhere near the eyewall yet (well "close, but still a good 20 miles away) and they are gusting to 98 mph now. That's pretty damn impressive.

[Lockhart]

If that's true, dennis, it looks like my hopes were right again. Since Grenada, Ivan has spared every piece of land. Jamaica, Caymans, Cuba... Let's hope he weakened right at the end.

[rdcrds]

say what you want but it lost its punch a few Hr's ago and NHC does not get ratings but i would love to see where they got those 135 mph winds at last report as from all the data posted and reports they are not there.Sure there are not reports all in yet but if this was a 135 mph strom as charlie was we would have heard about some winds somewhere by now.

When all is said and done they will leave it as a 135 mph storm but it was no more then a 2.

Which BTW makes me very happy as i wish nothing bad on anyone.

But this will not be the event some stations are claiming right now to hold people watching.

[baygirl_1]

As I said before, can we please cool it with writing the books about Ivan. Lots of people are still dealing with his winds and accompanying fury. I'm listening to radio from down there and the reports have not been good. They are having a really rough time right now. I went through Frederic down there and what they are describing sounds much like Frederic to me. Why not wait at least til morning to be calling what his power was?!

[Anonymous]

You also have to factor in that post with the temperature inversion data. If that is correct than the worst winds may be yet to come.

[manofsteele79]

The people that are having their roofs come off and HUGE trees come down before the eye is even on shore yet will disagree. This is a strong cat 3 minimum.

[southerngale]

They haven't even gotten the strongest part of the storm yet and rdcrds knows it was a cat. 2. Please! You need to change the title of this as some people may actually think you're giving real information.

[Praxus]

Yeah he said many times he was sheltered in a building;
in a totally different situation than when he was out in the open in frances.