Re: Military Bases on Hawaii
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 8/7/2014, 10:13 pm

I do agree with how TWC did put it earlier, it's the unknown. If this was Florida, this would be a non event. But given it has not happened before in recorded history here, people may or may not be prepared. The biggest problem is what you can't prepare for at this point, weaker building codes. I don't know how some of these places on the big island will fair. (We'll see if this will end up to the extent where it impacts some future building codes.) Plus, it is of course the elevation. In addition to building codes and preparation, it's the mountains and valleys that Florida doesn't have. I was just taking a look at the big island and so much of the population does live high. A lot of these coastal towns get up to 500 to 1,000 feet rather easily, where people live. They live in the higher valleys. And how will trees handle it? They don't get winds like this, so it is not like the older trees are occasionally brought down over the years. There are a lot to come down.

The very last sonde they released had the highest winds of the mission. Of course these are very brief winds, don't know how they would be sustained. But you can somewhat average them vertically.

1003mb (Surface): 75 knots (86 mph)
1000mb (72 ft): 77 knots (89 mph)
991mb: 84 knots (97 mph)
971mb: 79 knots (91 mph)
964mb: 87 knots (100 mph)
955mb: 80 knots (92 mph)
946mb: 80 knots (92 mph)
936mb: 73 knots (84 mph)
925mb (2,300 ft): 70 knots (81 mph)

So some winds were actually lower higher up on this particular sonde, but I'm not what the mountains and valleys are going to do.

Mean Boundary Level Wind (mean wind in the lowest 500 geopotential meters of the sounding):
- Wind Direction: 115° (from the ESE)
- Wind Speed: 82 knots (94 mph)

Average Wind Over Lowest Available 150 geopotential meters (gpm) of the sounding:
- Lowest 150m: 160 gpm - 10 gpm (525 geo. feet - 33 geo. feet)
- Wind Direction: 115° (from the ESE)
- Wind Speed: 81 knots (93 mph)

I see some fairly big towns up 2,500 to 3,500 feet.

An aptly named place, Volcano, for being on the slope of you guessed it, has a population of 2,231 and is up 3,750 feet.

An elevation profile is below for white line.

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Hurricane Warning Show for Iselle? - Gianmarc, 8/6/2014, 8:03 pm
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