Hurricane Andrew - 30 years later

[Floydbuster]

It's been 30 years since the Category 5 storm struck South Florida, and then later Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane.

Here's a little retrospective for the 30th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew.

 

Interestingly enough, going back and reading the data, Andrew was strengthening so fast upon landfall, that in the 25 minutes between the Elliot Key landfall and the Fender Point landfall, the pressure dropped 4 mb. That's a 4 mb pressure drop in 20-25 minutes. Crazy!

[NorthHillsWx]

3 minutes ago, Floydbuster said:

It's been 30 years since the Category 5 storm struck South Florida, and then later Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane.

Here's a little retrospective for the 30th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew.

 

Interestingly enough, going back and reading the data, Andrew was strengthening so fast upon landfall, that in the 25 minutes between the Elliot Key landfall and the Fender Point landfall, the pressure dropped 4 mb. That's a 4 mb pressure drop in 20-25 minutes. Crazy!

Great video, I had actually just watched this before I saw your post. The only other similar pressure drop at landfall was with Michael, but still, Andrew reigns king in the modern era 

[Floydbuster]

3 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Great video, I had actually just watched this before I saw your post. The only other similar pressure drop at landfall was with Michael, but still, Andrew reigns king in the modern era 

Yeah, hard to believe Michael's pressure was lower than Andrew. At the same time though, Andrew had very high background pressure. Funny thing though, it was clearly going to continue to deepen had it not struck Florida. My guess is that it might have gotten close to sub-900 mb.

Makes me wonder if Andrew '92 was the return period storm for the '35 Labor Day hurricane.

[NorthHillsWx]

One point you make that I truly agree with is that few storms with very high intensity several days out end up the strongest at landfall. It always seems the most powerful landfalling storms are the ones that rapidly strengthened into or just before landfall. Ida, Harvey, Laura and of course Michael are great recent examples. And of course Dorian in the Bahamas. Very rarely does a storm mature days out and hold onto a similar high-end intensity into a US landfall. Even Katrina, Rita, and Irma were weakening upon landfall 

[WxWatcher007]

35 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

One point you make that I truly agree with is that few storms with very high intensity several days out end up the strongest at landfall. It always seems the most powerful landfalling storms are the ones that rapidly strengthened into or just before landfall. Ida, Harvey, Laura and of course Michael are great recent examples. And of course Dorian in the Bahamas. Very rarely does a storm mature days out and hold onto a similar high-end intensity into a US landfall. Even Katrina, Rita, and Irma were weakening upon landfall 

I believe every landfalling 5 was a tropical storm within 72 hours of landfall. 

[olafminesaw]

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

One point you make that I truly agree with is that few storms with very high intensity several days out end up the strongest at landfall. It always seems the most powerful landfalling storms are the ones that rapidly strengthened into or just before landfall. Ida, Harvey, Laura and of course Michael are great recent examples. And of course Dorian in the Bahamas. Very rarely does a storm mature days out and hold onto a similar high-end intensity into a US landfall. Even Katrina, Rita, and Irma were weakening upon landfall 

Camille is the one except that comes to mind. Pretty much held strength from the time it entered the gulf all the way to landfall 

[Normandy]

In terms of modern hurricanes, to this day it still is King.  No other hurricane has produced wind damage and wind measurements like this hurricane did.  Some highlights for me:

- 115 MPH sustained / 164 MPH gust measured at NHC (outside of the eyewall, and failure occurring before the worst conditions arrive)

- 114 MPH sustained for 30 minutes at Key Largo in the South Eyewall (no failure here, but gives insight into max winds in the N eyewall assuming forward motion (approx 154 mph for 30 minutes give or take)

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/04landsea.pdf

 

[Floydbuster]

4 minutes ago, Normandy said:

In terms of modern hurricanes, to this day it still is King.  No other hurricane has produced wind damage and wind measurements like this hurricane did.  Some highlights for me:

- 115 MPH sustained / 164 MPH gust measured at NHC (outside of the eyewall, and failure occurring before the worst conditions arrive)

- 114 MPH sustained at Key Largo in the South Eyewall (no failure here, but gives insight into max winds in the N eyewall assuming forward motion (approx 164 mph give or take)

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/04landsea.pdf

 

I was always impressed by how long sustained winds were clocked. Sustained winds in most major landfalls don't last for long, and Andrew had some reports of 120-130 mph sustained for 10 minutes+ until instruments failed.

[Windspeed]

I was always impressed by how long sustained winds were clocked. Sustained winds in most major landfalls don't last for long, and Andrew had some reports of 120-130 mph sustained for 10 minutes+ until instruments failed.

Laura in 2020 had some epic long sustained 120+ mph wind on the ship anemometer during landfall that was caught on video before it failed as far as recent examples.

[Ed, snow and hurricane fan]

Bob Sheets in his book wrote about how the AVN, the grandfather of the GFS, did a good job on track.

 

And when recon found an open wave with 40 or 50 knot winds, he made the decision to keep advisories going because the shear looked better, and dropping a TS for 12 or 24 hours might give a false sense of security or fool people.

[lee59]

I remember some news reports early the morning after Andrew hit. Some reports were saying it did not seem as bad as feared mainly because the reports were coming out of the Miami area. Then they made it south and to Homestead.

[lee59]

4 hours ago, olafminesaw said:

Camille is the one except that comes to mind. Pretty much held strength from the time it entered the gulf all the way to landfall 

Camille is the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in my life time. Although all wind instruments were destroyed as the storm made landfall, it is estimated by NWS that  winds were 170-175 mph. and gusts close to 200mph. as it made landfall.

[CheeselandSkies]

8 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

One point you make that I truly agree with is that few storms with very high intensity several days out end up the strongest at landfall. It always seems the most powerful landfalling storms are the ones that rapidly strengthened into or just before landfall. Ida, Harvey, Laura and of course Michael are great recent examples. And of course Dorian in the Bahamas. Very rarely does a storm mature days out and hold onto a similar high-end intensity into a US landfall. Even Katrina, Rita, and Irma were weakening upon landfall 

Irma was on the verge of being that one long-tracker that makes it to a CONUS landfall as a 130kt+ beast...then the ridge verified stronger than expected and pushed it into Cuba. Hugo was pretty close, although IIRC it was about 115-120kt at SC landfall (sources seem to differ).

Some of the advisory forecast points for Florence IIRC put it inland with at least 120kt winds, but then it stalled out approaching the coast.

[WxWatcher007]

 

[marsman]

Washington Post (paywall): What would happen if Category 5 Hurricane Andrew hit Florida today

[CheeselandSkies]

Really interesting to see the model track output from 0Z 8/22/92; and that the majority of guidance did take the storm west toward Florida (although too far north, GFDL was the most accurate on direction for that run but much too slow) but there was a cluster of three models with an almost immediate sharp recurve OTS. AVN was closest on timing but much too far north, showing landfall near Port St. Lucie.

[CheeselandSkies]

Andrew really was unusual in many respects. Because it was the most recent major hurricane landfall (to a lesser extent accompanied by Hugo) when I was a young budding weather geek in the early-mid '90s with all the Weather Channel specials, books and magazine articles focusing on it, I grew up thinking of it as the quintessential hurricane and that all major hurricanes were like a couple hour long tornado; of course I now know that's not the case.

[nycwinter]

i remember that morning watching the news the director of the national hurricane center at that time bob sheets was on tv and the building was shaking..

[Hoosier]

I was 9 years old at the time and can remember watching coverage on TWC and being fascinated by it.  I actually named one of my pets Andrew.   

[A-L-E-K]

miss south

[nrgjeff]

My memorable trifecta was Gilbert, Hugo and Andrew. Each one was worse than the other for the US. Andrew had that pause with some shear; then it passed, and Andrew turned left with RI because to a short-wave ridge. That little feature was remarkable. 

As for the proximity to landfall RI, Camille excepted, storms usually can't maintain Cat 5 for more than 12-24 hours. It's probably a mix of issues researched. Perfect conditions are rare. Momentum does not last forever in the Atmo. Energy is used and the sea surface is churned. The big ones still carry their ACE - like Katrina. But we have to watch out for those named above that bombed right before and into landfall.

Back to my trifecta. Gilbert was the first one I tracked really seriously. Hugo shocked me into SC. Andrew was (for me) THEE storm of record until Katrina - which shocked me to a new level. Now we get shockers more frequently. 

[CheeselandSkies]

Two Cat. 4+ CONUS landfalls within three years (Hugo, Andrew) in a -AMO period (plus Iniki's precision strike on Hawaii) made it seem like such events were much more common than they really are, and made a lot of people really nervous for the coming +AMO period. 2004-05 went insane, then we went 12 years without a landfall at MH intensity.

[Floydbuster]

21 hours ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Two Cat. 4+ CONUS landfalls within three years (Hugo, Andrew) in a -AMO period (plus Iniki's precision strike on Hawaii) made it seem like such events were much more common than they really are, and made a lot of people really nervous for the coming +AMO period. 2004-05 went insane, then we went 12 years without a landfall at MH intensity.

Also, up until 2002, we all thought that Andrew had been 145 mph at landfall. So anytime we had a 145 mph hurricane, we'd all say it was "as strong as Andrew".