Hurricanes vs. the Charley Box

[MWatkins]

Sorry for the new thread...but I put a lot of work into this and I didn't want it burried at the bottom of a long thread from several days ago. Yes...while most people are watching football I'm doing stuff like this. Anyway...

A long time ago, I loaded in the historical storms database into Access to deal with problems just like this:

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=50267

Basically, I have been able to create a database and run some equations over it to calcualte the past 6 hour forward motion, course and speed in knots. I set it up to run a climatology model against but it works here.

There are currently problems with the database pre 1910 (storms in 2 lat/long pairs at the same time, or same location with different intensities)...so I dropped these. The rest is my analysis of these systems.

Definition of the "Charley Box": between 23 and 27 degrees N, 80 and 84.5 degrees west.

Since 1910 (not counting 2004), 99 named storms have passed through this square. I punted from the dataset any storm that brushed through (1 lat long pair in the box) since no comparative analysis can be completed, leaving 78 storms that have at least 2 6 hour best-track positions in the box.

Actually, I expected more from the data than I actually got. I thought FloydBuster was on to something and I was trying to validate it, but instead I think I have debunked the box.

1. Of the 78 storms entering the box, only 12 met the intenification criteria while in the box (15 knots or more of
intensification).

Storm...............Init....Course..Max Change
Storm 5,1910....90......332.....30
Storm 18,1933..90......340.....15
Storm 8,1947....60......44......15
EASY,1950........70......0.......35
INEZ,1966.........65......0.......25
JENNY,1969.......25......34......15
ALBERTO,198....50......66......15
BOB,1985.........25......90......15
MARCO,1990.....30......321.....25
DOTTIE,1976.....20......127.....15
KATE,1985.........80......288.....15
GABRIELLE,2001.25......258.....25

2. Of the 12 storms, 9 (75%) were moving between 316 degrees (NW) and Due East (90) when they entered the box.

Storm...............Init....Course..Max Change
Storm 5,1910....90......332.....30
Storm 18,1933..90......340.....15
Storm 8,1947....60......44......15
EASY,1950........70......0.......35
INEZ,1966.........65......0.......25
JENNY,1969.......25......34......15
ALBERTO,1982...50......66......15
BOB,1985..........25......90......15
MARCO,1990.....30......321.....25


3. Of the 12 Storms, 5 were either a hurricane or obtained hurriane intensity while in the box (and none since 1966).

Storm...............Init....Course..Max Change
Storm 5,1910.....90......332.....30
Storm 18,1933...90......340.....15
Storm 8,1947......60......44......15
EASY,1950.........70......0.......35
INEZ,1966..........65......0.......25

Looking further to see if there was a trend with Cat 2 storms coming into the box....

4. Of all storms (24) that entered the box as a Category 2 or stronger storm (85 knots +), only six intensified more than 5 knots in the box.

Storm...........Entered.Course..Max Change
Storm 4,1910....95......349.....10
Storm 5,1910....90......332.....30
Storm 2,1919....110.....279.....10
Storm 11,1933...85......286.....10
Storm 18,1933...90......339.....15
ISBELL,1964.....100.....44......10

And of those 6, 2 were hurricanes moving W or WNW and would not have qualified for the box anyway.

I did not control against this sample with 78 random hurricanes to look at intensification to determine if there is a scientifically significant difference between these storms and any other random storms, but unfortunately I cannot confirm the theroy with the data I currently have. It smells normal to me, and perhaps if anything there is a negative correllation...considering that storms meeting the movement criteria are feeling troughs and would tend to have problems with a poleward outflow channel.

Interesting though that all of the storms that became hurricanes or were hurricanes when entering the box occured before 1965 (before Charley), and that there had been only 1 since 1933.

Anyway...all this really proves I think is that Charley was a once every 100 years storm...thank goodness for that.

Sorry FB...I wanted to help but I think it's back to the drawing board.

On a side note, is there any way to post a table that looks clean without all of these &%!$@! dots in them?

MW

[KeyLargoDave]

Man, what an excellent analysis. Thanks for working with the data and writing up such a clear report.

As I remember it, FB hypothesized that the Charley box was an area where rapid intensification was likely -- a warning area we could focus on.

It's interesting what you found. AFAIK, rapid intensification is rare, and rapid intensification close to US landfall is rarer still. The most important factor you mention is that storms moving in a Florida landfalling direction and in the Charley box are likely recurving, and if under influence of a trough, there can be increased forward speed (reducing time for intensification) and affect on the poleward outflow channel.

Still, because of its proximity, Floridians obviously will have a very close eye on any storm that is in the "Charley Box." In fact, it includes 25 N 80.5 W, that's landfall at my house already.

Significant that 75 percent of the storms were heading in a Florida landfalling direction in the Charley Box. Are there other areas that see more uniform tracks than others?

Again, thanks.