Reminds me of Gilbert

[WeatherNole]

Mike As a Pro. Met since Gilbert what storm IF any would you say closley represents Gilbert? .... Mitch? Nothing Concrete needed just your opinion...I know we havent seen ANYTHING close to 888mb since Gilbert....

I guess Mitch would be the closest (when it got down to 905mb), but I believe Gilbert was still larger, and I don't recall Mitch ever getting that perfect pinpoint eye like Gilbert had in that pic from Sept. 13th.

The summer of 1988 was right after I graduated from FSU. I was working early weekend mornings at WTVT in Tampa when Gilbert came along. I still remember just being in awe of it - taking up about half the Caribbean. I'm sure I didn't realize just how historic it was. I hope we never see another one like it - unless it's prowling the Atlantic away from land. I went to Cozumel two years later on a cruise and it was just barely getting put back together.

I really feel for Cozumel.

Mike

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[mike18xx]

I guess Mitch would be the closest (when it got down to 905mb)

I remember watching Mitch; IMO, it bombed in-between recon runs, and the true best readings will never be known.

[rtd2]

Thanks Mike....I was 11 when Gilbert made his legacy....Even at a young age I knew Gilbert would be remebered for MANY years! ...Your right Gilbert had a Pinhole Eyelike No other!

[Normandy]

Emily's has some deeeep convetion around her eyewall, but her SW side is lookin rather thin right now.

[Tri-State_1925]

If anything, Ivan was more like Gilbert than this storm...

As far as Gilbert goes, that's a storm that flew under my radar in the Northeast until a few years later when I finally had cable TV and TWC. I mean the US national media was all over Hugo, but I don't remember seeing anything on Gilbert. Not like in this day and age...

[mike18xx]

IMO, the coolest Atlantic storm is Isabel with her five-rotating-around-a-sixth eye surface-vortices.
She had a jumbo eye, and managed 160mph at a radius greater than Gilbert or Mitch might have had:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/archive/2003/storms/isabel/movies/isabel-eye.html

Isabel is the storm the caused me to form the theory that hurricane eyes are much like gears in a race-car: certain-size eyes process atmosphere most efficiently given pressure surroundings, shear, and available moisture/heat, and, like a race car at various places around the track, it eyes "shift" as necessary. Isabel's central vortice is the remnant of a previous tiny eye from rapid initial intensification.

[sfgal]

One of my best friends was in Cozumel when Gilbert hit; they rode out the storm on the fourth or fifth floor of their hotel, sitting in a bathtub with a mattress over them. They had to share their bathroom with strangers, because the hotel moved guests from lower rooms into higher ones (storm surge concerns). I remember trying and trying to get info about her for several days (her mother and I were on the phone to the State Department, you name it). FInally, after several days, they began airlifting tourists our of Cancun and Cozumel, spacing the flights several hours apart because airport equipment had been destroyed. I waited in the Houston airport for almost a day, scanning each disembarking passenger. I talked to many; the stories were terrifying. Finally, my fiend appeared. What a great moment!

She said that after the storm, she saw crabs walking in the third floor corriders of her hotel. The beach was just coral rock; no sand was left. She worked really hard upon returning home to get aid to the residents of Cozumel and Cancun; we were both amazed at how little coverage the destruction got in the media.

As I watch Emily progress, it reminds of the terror of those days, of the worry that my friend might not have survived. I feel for everyone in iEmily's path.