Quote:
Originally Posted by JL8Jeff
The sooner it becomes a cat 5 the better for the US. Cat 5 storms don't stay cat 5 for very long so if it reaches that strength early enough it will hopefully weaken before hitting land. It looks now like it will most likely continue on a westward track so hopefully won't disrupt anything in the Gulf. As for NO, I still think it's a bad idea to rebuild a city below sea level and especially one that is sinking into the ground. It's a huge waste of money and resources.
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Unfortunately there is a high pressure ridge that is int he way by mexico that is going to push it north into the gulf unless it disippates. Cat 5 storms normally don't last long because they hitland, if you remember Ioke last year it was a Cat 5 for 9 days (actually it went to Cat 4 twice, but by 1 MPH) because it was over water and had sustained winds of over 195MPH at one point with gusts over 200 and crusie dform east of Hawaii all the way to a few hundred miles from Japan. I actually think it will be better for it to hit Cat 5 closer to the states because as long as it is over water and has good convection without alot of windscheer it will continue to build and then when it hits the continental shelf it may not weaken fast enough. If it gets up to something nuts like 200MPH winds over open water it will die to maybe 165 as it crosses the shelf and still make landfall as a Cat 5. However if it gets to Cat 5 status a day before hitting land and has winds of 155MPH it would most likely drop to 125-135 before hitting land. Your still screwed, but your house will only be 1 state away instead of 3. Best case you get some strong high level windsheer from the jetstream moving south and it will cut off the high level convection and force it to dissipate. even 200MPH winds are no match for a jetstream going 300+ MPH.