OUTLINE
Abstract
A re-analysis of the Atlantic basin tropical storm and hurricane database
("best track") for the period of 1851 to 1910 has been completed. This
reworking and extension back in time of the main archive for tropical
cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico
was necessary to correct systematic and random errors and biases in
the data as well as to incorporate the recent historical analyses by
Partagas and Diaz. The re-analysis project provides the revised tropical
storm and hurricane database, a metadata file detailing individual changes
for each tropical cyclone, a "center fix" file of raw tropical cyclone
observations, a collection of U.S. landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes,
and comments from replies to the OAR's Best Track
Change Committee. This chapter details the methodologies and references
utilized for this re-analysis of the Atlantic tropical cyclone record.
Introduction
This chapter provides documentation of the first efforts to re-analyze
the OAR's (NHC's) North Atlantic hurricane database
(or HURDAT, also called “best tracks” since they are the
“best” determination of track and intensity in a post-season
analysis of the tropical cyclones). The original database of six-hourly
tropical cyclone (i.e. tropical storms and hurricanes) positions and
intensities was assembled in the 1960s in support of the Apollo space
program to help provide statistical tropical cyclone track forecasting
guidance (Jarvinen et al. 1984). Since its inception, this database,
which is freely and easily accessible on the Internet from NHC's webpage
<http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastall.shtml>,
has been utilized for a wide variety of additional projects: setting
of appropriate building codes for coastal zones, risk assessment for
emergency managers, analysis of potential losses for insurance and business
interests, intensity forecasting techniques, verification of official
and model predictions of track and intensity, seasonal forecasting,
and climatic change studies. Unfortunately, HURDAT was not designed
with all of these uses in mind when it was first put together and not
all of them may be appropriate, given its original motivation and limitations.
There are many reasons why a re-analysis
of the HURDAT dataset was both needed and timely. HURDAT contained many
systematic and random errors that needed correction (Neumann 1994).
Additionally, as our understanding of tropical cyclones had developed,
analysis techniques at NHC changed over the years, and led to biases
in the historical database that had not been addressed (Landsea 1993).
Another difficulty in applying the hurricane database to studies concerned
with landfalling events was the lack of exact location, time and intensity
information at landfall. Finally, recent efforts led by Jose Fernandez-Partagas
to uncover previously undocumented historical tropical cyclones in the
mid-1800s to early 1900s have greatly increased our knowledge of these
past events (Partagas
and Diaz 1996a), which also had not been incorporated into the HURDAT
database.
Currently, the HURDAT database is updated
at the end of each year's hurricane season after the NHC hurricane specialists
perform a post-season analysis of that year’s storms. The most
recent documentation generally available for the database is a NOAA
Technical Memorandum by Jarvinen et al. (1984). While this reference
is still valid for most descriptions of the tropical cyclone database,
it too is in need of revision. This chapter is designed to help provide
a more up to date documentation for HURDAT.
A re-analysis of the Atlantic tropical cyclone database is justified
by the need to address these deficiencies as well as to extend the historical
record back in time. This chapter details the first efforts to improve
both the accuracy and consistency of HURDAT for the years of 1886 to
1910 as well as to provide an additional thirty-five years (1851-1885)
into the archived database of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes.
Outline of Databases
Provided in the Re-Analysis
As part of the re-analysis effort, five files have
been made available:
- The revised Atlantic HURDAT: This contains
six-hourly intensity (maximum sustained 1-minute winds at the surface
[10 m] and, when available, central pressures) and position (to the
nearest 0.1o latitude and longitude) estimates of all known
tropical storms and hurricanes. (easy
to read version)
- A HURDAT metafile: This documentation
file has detailed information about each change in the revised HURDAT.
Included are the original HURDAT values of position and/or intensity,
the revised values in HURDAT, and the reasoning behind the changes.
- A “center fix” file:
A file has been created that is composed of raw observations of tropical
cyclone positions (thus “center fixes”) and intensity
measurements from either ships or coastal stations.
- A U.S. landfalling tropical
storm and hurricane database: This file contains information on
the exact time, location, intensity, radius of maximum winds (RMW),
environmental sea level pressure and storm surge for continental U.S.
landfalling (and those whose centers do not make landfall, but do
impact land) tropical storms and hurricanes.
- NHC Best Track Change Committee comments:
This file provides detailed comments from the NHC’s Best Track
Change Committee – a group tasked with approving alterations
to the HURDAT database. Replies by the authors to the various comments
and recommendations are also included.
These files along with track maps showing all tropical storms and hurricanes
for individual years are available on the HURDAT re-analysis web page:
<http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/data_sub/re_anal.html>.
The Work of Jose Fernandez-Partagas
Efforts to digitize and quality control the
work of Partagas
and Diaz (1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c, 1997, 1999) produced
the largest additions and alterations to HURDAT. Partagas and Diaz utilized
a variety of sources for their research: ship reports in newspapers,
individual and seasonal summaries published in the Monthly Weather Review,
documents from government agencies, historical reviews and scientific
publications (Table 1). A distillation of this
information by the re-analysis project led to the creation of completely
new tropical cyclone tracks and intensities for the years 1851 to 1885
and the alteration of existing track and intensity data for the period
of 1886 to 1910. Secondarily, the re-analysis effort also corrected
many of the existing systematic and random errors that existed in the
1886 to 1910 portion of HURDAT. The improvements included: a) corrected
interpolations of winds near landfall, b) more realistic speed changes
at the beginning and/or end of the tropical cyclone track, c) improved
landfall locations, and d) corrected of reduction of inland winds using
Kaplan and DeMaria’s (1995, 2001) methodology. A number of sources
beyond those utilized by Partagas and Diaz were also used in the re-analysis
work, which are detailed in Table 1.
Jose Fernandez-Partagas’ research - extremely
painstaking and time-consuming work - was detailed in full in the volumes
from Partagas
and Diaz (1995a, 1995b, 1996b, 1996c, 1997 and 1999). An example
of the documentation that he provided is shown below for the first storm
of 1856. (The storm track mentioned in Fig. [1]
is shown as Storm 1 in Figure 1.)
“Storm 1, 1856 (Aug. 10-11).
Tannehill (1938) has mentioned this storm as
having occurred along the Louisiana coast. Dunn and Miller (1960) and
Ludlum (1963) have also mentioned this storm. The author of this study
has prepared the storm track which is displayed in Fig.
[1].
The New-York Daily Times, Aug. 16, 1856 p.1, col.1, published that there
had been a storm in the New Orleans area on August 10 and that such
a storm had been most disastrous at Last Island (Ile Derniere). A narrative
of what had happened at Last Island included some meteorological remarks:
Heavy N.E. winds prevailed during the night of August 9 and a perfect
hurricane started blowing around 10 A.M. August 10. The water commenced
to rise about 2 P.M. and by 4 P.M. currents from the Gulf and the Bay
had met and the sea waved over the whole island (The New-York Daily
Times, Aug. 21, p.3, col.4).
The following information has been extracted from Ludlum (1963): The
ship "C. D. Mervin" passed through the eye of the storm off
the Southwest Pass. Captain Mervin checked the barometer at 8 A.M. Aug.
10 and noticed a reading of 28.20 inches, a 24-hr drop of 1.70 inches.
At 9 A.M. the ship had a calm which lasted for 5 minutes. The sun shone
and there was every appearance of clearing off but the wind suddenly
struck the ship from the opposite direction. For two more hours, more
a southerly hurricane struck the ship and then gradually abated. After
the hurricane, the ship location was found to be only 60 miles to the
W.S.W. of Southwest Pass.
At Iberville, Parish of Vermillon, the Aug. 10-11 storm raged with terrific
force but only gales were reported at New Orleans, where the maximum
wind at observation time was force 8 on the Beaufort scale (39-46 miles
per hour) from an easterly direction at 2 P.M. August 10 (Ludlum, 1963).
It can be inferred from the above information that Storm 1, 1856 was
a hurricane which was moving on a northwesterly course as shown in Fig.
[1].”
Center Fix Files
From the observations uncovered by Partagas for
this storm – Storm 1, 1856, the following “center fix”
data were archived as shown in Table 2a. (A
center fix position observation was unavailable for this storm, so a sample
data point for Storm 5, 1852 is shown as an example in Table
2b.)
The conversion from descriptive measures of winds
to quantitative wind speeds, while quite subjective, is assisted by the
usage of the Beaufort Scale, which was developed as a wind force scale
for sailing ships by Admiral Francis Beaufort in 1805 and made mandatory
for log entries in the British Royal Navy by 1838 (Kinsman 1969). Subsequently,
the scale evolved into one associated with specific wind speed ranges
as specified by interpretations of the sea state, rather than the wind’s
impact on sails (Table 3). Due to limitations
at the top end of the Beaufort Scale, the center fix and best track data
in the re-analysis generally list ship reports of “hurricane”
force winds as 70 kt (36 m s-1) winds. The listed wind speeds
were boosted to 90 kt (46 m s-1) when ship reports included
terms such as “severe”, “violent”, “terrific”,
or “great hurricane”. Hurricanes at sea were not assigned
a best track intensity value of major hurricane (Saffir-Simpson Scale
Category 3, 4 or 5; 96 kt [50 m s-1] or greater maximum sustained
surface wind speeds) unless corresponding central pressure data was able
to confirm such an intensity. Caution was warranted in the direct use
of these Beaufort Scale wind estimates for tropical storm and hurricane
intensity assignments due to lack of consistency and standardization in
the scale during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries (Cardone et al.
1990). However, in many cases these Beaufort Scale measurements by mariners
were the only clues available for estimating the intensity of tropical
cyclones of this era.
Occasionally, there were ship observations with no specific dates available.
These were primarily utilized to provide information about the track
of the storm (e.g. a southwest gale noted by a ship captain would indicate
a tropical cyclone located to the northwest of the ship’s position)
as long as other ship/land observations could help pinpoint its timing.
“Dateless” ship observations were also infrequently utilized
to assist in the intensity estimates.
For land based observations of wind speed, there were generally two
types available during the second half of the 19th and early 20th Centuries:
visual estimates and the four cup Robinson anemometer (Ludlum 1963,
Ho 1989). Visual estimates, though crude, were somewhat standardized
by use of a ten point scale for use by volunteers of the Smithsonian
Institute as well as by Army observers at various forts (Table 4, M.
Chenoweth, personal communication, 2001).
Of modestly more reliability was the four cup anemometer, first developed
by Robinson in the 1840s (Kinsman 1969). Of primary difficulties were
calibrating the instrument and its mechanical failure in high wind conditions.
Even as late as 1890, the highest wind that could be reliably calibrated
with this instrument was only about 30 kt (from a whirling machine),
due to lack of a strict comparison with a known quantity of stronger
winds (Fergusson and Covert 1924). By the early 1920s, wind tunnels
allowed for calibration against much stronger winds. These showed that
the winds from these early cup anemometers had a strong overestimation
bias, which was most pronounced at very strong wind speeds (Fergusson
and Covert 1924). For example, an indicated wind of minimal hurricane
force (64 kt) in actuality was only about 50 kt. Moreover, most of these
early four cup anemometers were disabled or destroyed before sampling
the highest winds of hurricanes. The strongest observed winds in an
Atlantic hurricane by this type of anemometer was a 5-min sustained
wind measurement of 120 kt in storm 2, 1879, just before the instrument
was destroyed by this North Carolina-landfalling hurricane (Kadel 1926).
(A standard of 5-min was typically utilized in U.S. Army Corps and Weather
Bureau reports of “maximum winds”, due to instrumental uncertainties
in obtained reliable values for shorter time period winds.) With reliable
calibrations available in the 1920s, this extreme wind’s true
velocity was only about 91 kt. Current understanding of gustiness in
hurricane conditions suggest a boost of 1.05 to convert from a 5-min
to a 1-min maximum sustained wind (Dunion et al. 2002), giving a best
estimate of the maximum 1-min sustained wind of about 96 kt.
Coastal station wind data listed in the center fix files are the original
measurements provided. It is in the interpretation of these data for
inclusion into the best track that these various biases and limitations
(i.e., strong overestimation in high wind regime, conversion of 5-min
to 1-min wind, and instrumental failure) are taken into account. More
on the difficulties of the intensity estimations is found in the Limitations
and Errors section
Wind-Pressure Relationships
Sea level atmospheric pressure measurements
(either peripheral pressures or central pressures) can provide estimates
of the maximum sustained wind speeds in a tropical cyclone, in the absence
of in situ observations of the peak wind strength. In the case of Storm
1, 1856, the ship “C.D. Mervin” observed a peripheral pressure
of 955 mb (Table 2a), likely while in the
western eyewall. Central pressures of tropical cyclones can be estimated
from such peripheral pressure measurements if relatively reliable values
of the RMW and environmental (or surrounding) sea level pressure can
also be obtained. Radius of maximum wind information was occasionally
obtained from ships or coastal stations that were unfortunate enough
to have the eye of the hurricane pass directly overhead. Careful notation
of the times of the peak winds and the calm of the eye experienced along
with the best estimate of the translational speed of the hurricane allowed
for direct calculation of the RMW. Another method for estimating RMW
was to measure the mean distance from the hurricane’s track to
the location of the peak storm surge and/or peak wind-caused damages.
Such RMW measurements or estimates were relatively rare over the open
ocean and only somewhat more common as hurricanes made landfall over
populated coastlines. Central pressure can then be estimated from the
following equation (Schloemer, 1954; Ho, 1989):
PR - Po
--------- = e(-RMW/R)
Pn - Po
where PR is the sea level pressure at radius R, Po is the central pressure
at sea level, and Pn is the environmental (or surrounding) sea level
pressure at the outer limit of a tropical cyclone where the cyclonic
circulation ends.
Once a central pressure has been estimated,
maximum sustained wind speeds can be obtained from a wind-pressure relationship.
The current standard wind-pressure relationship for use in the Atlantic
basin by NHC (OFCM 2001) is that developed by Dvorak (1984) as modified
from earlier work by Kraft (1961).
The re-analysis developed new wind-pressure
relationships (described below) to help derive winds from an observed
(or estimated) central pressure only in the absence of reliable wind
data. These relationships are not intended to give best track wind estimates
for hurricanes in the last few decades of the 20th Century. During this
time, accurate flight-level wind measurements were commonly available
from reconnaissance aircraft. The new wind-pressure relationship estimates
should not supercede the use of any reliable, direct wind observations
(rare in the 19th and early 20th centuries), which may be available
in a tropical cyclone. It is important to avoid situations where accurate
in situ data are modified by estimates from a wind-pressure relationship.
The re-analysis used new wind-pressure relationships
for four regions in the Atlantic basin: Gulf of Mexico (GMEX), southern
latitudes (south of 25°N), subtropical latitudes (25-35°N) and
northern latitudes (35-45°N). Regional wind-pressure relationships
were developed because of a tendency for the association to differ depending
upon latitude. The equations relating maximum sustained surface wind
speeds to a corresponding central pressure as well as those for the
Kraft and Dvorak formulations are shown below and representative values
are displayed in Table 5. The tabular wind
values are based on the following regression equations:
1) For GMEX Wind (kt)=10.627*(1013-Po)0.5640 Sample size
=664; r=0.991
2) For < 25°N Wind (kt)=12.016*(1013-Po)0.5337 Sample size =1033;
r=0.994
3) For 25-35°N Wind (kt)=14.172*(1013-Po)0.4778 Sample size =922; r=0.996
4) For 35-45°N Wind (kt)=16.086*(1013-Po)0.4333 Sample size =492; r=0.974
5) For Kraft Wind (kt)=14.000*(1013-Po)0.5000 Sample size =13
The central pressure for these equations is given in units of millibars
and r refers to the linear correlation coefficient. Dashes in Table
5 indicate that the pressure is lower than that available in the developmental
dataset. Wind and pressure data used for the regression were obtained
from the HURDAT file, 1970-1997. The developmental dataset excludes all
overland tropical cyclone positions. Data for the < 25oN
zone were obtained from longitudes of 62°W and westward. Data for
the 25-35oN zone are from 57.5°W and westward. Data for
35-45°N include the longitudes of 51°W and westward. GMEX includes
all over-water data west of a line from northeastern Yucatan to 25°N,
80°W. These locations were chosen based on their accessibility by
aircraft reconnaissance that can provide both actual wind speed and pressure
measurements.
When developing the wind-pressure relationships, attempts were first
made to develop the equations with all of the available data for each
region. However, the overwhelming numbers of observations at the low
wind speed ranges overweighted the observations of the tropical storms
and Category 1 hurricanes at the expense of the major hurricanes. When
the derived equations were compared against the observations of wind
and pressure at the very high wind values (> 100 kt [51 m s-1]),
the fit was quite poor. This was overcome by binning the observations
into 5 mb groups and then performing the regression. Using this methodology,
the observations at the 981-985 mb range, for example, were weighted
equally to those of the 931-935 mb range. After performing the regression
this way, a much more accurate set of regression equations with the
wind and pressure estimates for the Category 3, 4 and 5 hurricane ranges
was obtained. Because this method reduces the standard deviation of
the sample as well as the sample size, the correlation coefficients
are inflated.
In general, the Dvorak formulation is most similar to the Gulf of Mexico
and southern latitude relationships. For example, a 960 mb hurricane
is suggested to have 102 kt (52 m s-1) sustained surface winds from
Dvorak's relationship, which is quite close to the 100 kt (51 m s-1)
estimate provided by both the Gulf of Mexico and southern latitude relationships.
However, there is a tendency for the Dvorak wind values to be higher
than winds provided by the Gulf of Mexico and southern latitude wind-pressure
relationships for the extremely intense (< 920 mb) hurricanes, though
the number of data points available for calibration of this end of the
wind-pressure curves is quite low. In addition, the Dvorak wind-pressure
relationship systematically overestimates the wind speeds actually utilized
by NHC for the subtropical and northern latitude hurricanes with central
pressures less than 975 mb. For the case of a hurricane with a 960 mb
central pressure, the subtropical and northern latitude equations suggest
94 kt (48 m s-1) and 90 kt (46 m s-1), respectively. The weaker winds
in higher latitudes can be explained physically with the following reasoning:
As hurricanes move poleward encountering cooler sea surface temperatures
and begin to evolve into an extratropical cyclone, the tight pressure
gradient and resulting wind field typically weakens and expands outward.
This is due in part to structural evolution, but also due to less efficient
vertical momentum transport by convection in a more stable environment.
In addition, increases in the Coriolis force causes a corresponding,
but small, decrease in tangential wind speed (Holland 1987). Since these
changes become more pronounced as the tropical cyclones move into higher
latitudes, an even larger reduction in wind speed was utilized poleward
of 45oN. It is thus consistent that the Dvorak wind-pressure relationship
overestimates of winds in higher latitudes because the original formulation
of Kraft is based primarily upon observations from the Caribbean Sea
and Gulf of Mexico.
The use of wind-pressure relationships to estimate winds in tropical
cyclones has a few associated caveats. First, for a given central pressure,
a smaller-sized tropical cyclone (measured either by RMW or radius of
hurricane/gale force winds) will produce stronger winds than a large
tropical cyclone. From Vickery et al. (2001), the mean RMW (in km) of
Atlantic tropical cyclones can be expressed as a function of central
pressure (Po), environmental pressure (Pn) and latitude (L):
ln(RMW) = 2.636 - 0.00005086*( Po - Pn )2 + 0.0394899*(L).
Tropical storms and hurricanes with observed/estimated RMW that deviated
by 25-50% from the average RMW values had wind speeds adjusted accordingly
by about 5 kt. Tropical cyclones with RMW dramatically (more than 50%)
different from climatology had winds adjusted by about 10 kt.
A second caveat concerns the translational speed of the tropical cyclone.
In general, the translational speed is an additive factor on the right
side of the storm and a negative factor on the left (Callaghan and Smith
1998). For example, a tropical cyclone moving westward in the Northern
Hemisphere at 10 kt (5 m s-1) with maximum sustained winds of 90 kt
(46 m s-1) on the west and east sides would produce approximately 100
kt (51 m s-1) of wind on the north side and only 80 kt (41 m s-1) on
the south side. At low to medium translational speeds (less than around
20 kt [10 m s-1]), the variation in storm winds on opposite sides of
the storm track is approximately twice the translational velocity, although
there is substantial uncertainty and non-uniformity regarding this impact
on tropical cyclone winds. At faster translational speeds, this factor
is somewhat less than two (Boose et al. 2001). Storms that move significantly
faster than the regionally-dependent climatological translational speeds
(Neumann 1993, Vickery et al. 2001) have been chosen in the re-analysis
to have higher maximum sustained wind speeds than slower storms with
the same central pressure. Similarly, storms with slower than usual
rates of translational velocity may have slightly lower winds for a
given central pressure. Such alterations to the standard wind-pressure
relationship were previously accounted for to some degree in the original
version of HURDAT (Jarvinen et al. 1984), so the period of 1886 to 1910
was checked for consistency in the implementation of translational velocity
impacts upon maximum sustained surface winds and changes made where
needed.
A third caveat of the wind-pressure relationships is that these algorithms
were derived assuming over-water conditions. The use of the relationship
for tropical cyclones overland must consider the increased roughness
length of typical land surfaces and the dampening of the maximum sustained
wind speeds that result. In general, maximum sustained wind speeds over
open terrain exposures (with roughness lengths of 0.03 m) are about
5-10% slower than over-water wind speeds (Powell and Houston 1996),
though for rougher terrain the wind speed decrease is substantially
greater.
Finally, the derivation of the new regional wind-pressure relationships
here is quite different from those originally analyzed by Kraft (1961)
and Dvorak (1984). In these earlier efforts, observed central pressures
were directly matched with observed maximum sustained surface winds.
One substantial limitation in such efforts was in obtaining a sizable
sample upon which to derive the wind-pressure equations. Here this limitation
is avoided by using the actual HURDAT wind and central pressure values
in recent years, which does provide a large dataset to work with. However,
this approach lacks a degree of independence, as NHC used the Kraft
and Dvorak wind-pressure curves to provide estimates of maximum sustained
surface winds from observed central pressures. This was especially the
case during the 1970s, when aircraft flight-level winds were often discarded
in favor of using the measured central pressure since there was considerable
uncertainty as to how to extrapolate flight-level winds to the surface
(Paul Hebert, personal communication). Such interdependence between
recent HURDAT winds and central pressures may somewhat account for the
close match between the Dvorak formulation to the Gulf of Mexico and
southern latitude relationships. Despite these concerns, the development
of regionalized wind-pressure relationships represents a step toward
more realistic wind-pressure associations, though improvements beyond
what has been presented here could certainly be achieved.
For many late 19th and early 20th Century storms,
the central pressure could not be estimated from peripheral pressure measurements
with the Schloemer equation because of unknown values for the RMW. Such
peripheral pressure data were noted accordingly in the metadata file and
used as a minimum estimate of what the best track winds were at the time.
In most of these cases, the best track winds that were chosen were substantially
higher than that suggested by the wind-pressure relationship itself. For
Storm 1, 1856, maximum sustained winds consistent with the ship report
of a 955 mb peripheral pressure measurement should be at least 105 kt
(54 m s-1) based on the Gulf of Mexico wind-pressure relationship
(Table 5). In this case, 130 kt (67 m s-1)
was chosen for the best track at the time of this ship report (see Metadata
Files section for more details).
Best Track Files
Tropical cyclone positions and intensities
in HURDAT have been added to and changed for the re-analyzed period
of 1851 to 1910. Tracks added for the years of 1851 to 1870 were digitized
from the work of Partagas and Diaz (1995a).
For the years 1871 to 1885, tracks for tropical cyclones that were unaltered
by Partagas and Diaz (1995b,
1996b)
were digitized directly from Neumann et al. (1993). The intensity estimates
for 1851 to 1885 were determined with consideration of available raw
data found in Partagas and Diaz (1995a,
1995b,
1996b),
Ludlum (1963), Ho (1989) and other references, all of which have been
recorded in the center fix files. A large majority of the tropical cyclones
for the years 1886 to 1910 were altered in their track and/or intensity
based upon the work of Partagas and Diaz (1996b,
1996c,
1997,
1999)
and others listed in Table 1. Additions and
changes made to individual tropical cyclones and the references that
were the basis for the alterations are listed in detail in the metafiles
for the separate tropical cyclones.
Tropical cyclone positions were determined
primarily by wind direction observations from ships and coastal stations
and secondarily by sea level pressure measurements and reports of damages
from winds, storm tides or fresh-water flooding. Figure
2 illustrates for an idealized case how to estimate a tropical cyclone
center from two ship observations. With these observations and the knowledge
that the flow in a tropical cyclone is relatively symmetric (i.e. circular
flow with an inflow angle of 20o, Jelesnianski 1993), a relatively
reliable estimate of the center of the storm can be obtained from a
few peripheral wind direction measurements. However, analysis of tropical
cyclone intensity is much less straightforward. Intensity, described
as the maximum sustained 1-min surface (10 m) winds, of tropical cyclones
for the period of 1851 to 1910 was based upon (in decreasing order of
weighting) central pressure observations, wind observations from anemometers,
Beaufort wind estimates, peripheral pressure measurements, wind-caused
damages along the coast and storm tide. The next section in the chapter
goes into detail about limitations and possible errors in the HURDAT
position and intensity estimates for this era.
Table 6 provides the
best track for Storm 1, 1856 based upon the Partagas and Diaz (1995a)
track after conducting a critical independent assessment of their proposed
positions and wind speeds (10 kt [5 m s] increments) from
known ship and land observations. This storm is a typical (though intense)
example of one of the many newly archived tropical cyclones in the database.
It is fully acknowledged that the best tracks drawn for tropical cyclones
during the period 1851-1910 represent just a fragmentary record of what
truly occurred over the open Atlantic Ocean. For this particular hurricane,
the first six-hourly intensity given on 9 August at 00 UTC is 70 kt
(36 m s-1). It should not be inferred that this hurricane
began its lifecycle at 70 kt, but instead that data were lacking to
make an estimate of its position and intensity before this date.
Occasionally, there are tropical cyclones in the best track for which
only one six-hourly position and intensity estimate was available (the
“single point” storms - e.g. Storm 1, 1851). This was typically
due to one encounter of a tropical cyclone by a ship or the landfall
of the system along the coast with no prior recorded contact with other
ships or coastal communities. The position and intensity estimated for
such tropical cyclones have more uncertainty than usual, since it was
not possible to check for consistency between consecutive position/intensity
estimates. Users are to be cautioned that these single point storms
will cause programming difficulties for versions of programs that are
expecting at least two position/intensity estimates.
For the period of 1886 to 1930, the existing HURDAT was originally created
from a once daily (12Z) estimate of position and intensity (Jarvinen
et al. 1984). This caused some difficulty in situations of rapid intensification
and rapid decay, such as the landfall of a tropical cyclone. For the
latter case, the Kaplan and DeMaria (1995, 2001) models provided guidance
for determining wind speeds for the best track after landfall of a tropical
cyclone, but only in the absence of observed inland winds. The models
used by Kaplan and DeMaria begin with a maximum sustained wind at landfall
and provides decayed wind speed values out to about two days after landfall.
Kaplan and DeMaria (1995) was designed for landfalling tropical cyclones
over the southeastern United States where nearly all of the region within
150 nmi (275 km) of the coast has elevations less than 650 ft (200 m).
Therefore the decay of winds over higher terrain areas such as Hispanola
and much of Mexico predicted with the Kaplan and DeMaria (1985) model
is inadequate (e.g., Bender et al. 1985). For these cases, a faster
rate of decay than that given from this model (on the order of 30% accelerated
rate of decay) was utilized in the re-analysis.
Ho et al. (1987) also developed several relationships for the decay
of tropical cyclone central pressure after landfall, which were stratified
by geographic location and value of the pressure deficit (environmental
pressure minus central pressure) at landfall. In general, for tropical
cyclones striking the U.S. Gulf Coast, at ten hours after landfall,
the pressure deficit decreased by half. For Florida (south of 29oN)
hurricanes at ten hours after landfall, the pressure deficit decreased
by only one-quarter. For U.S. hurricanes making landfall north of Georgia,
the pressure deficit is 0.55 times that of the landfalling value at
ten hours after landfall. For extremely intense hurricanes, the rate
of decay is somewhat faster. The relationships that Ho et al. (1987)
developed are utilized here on occasion to derive an estimated central
pressure at landfall from an inland central pressure measurement. The
only deviation is for hurricanes traversing the marshes of southern
Louisiana. In the Ho et al. (1987) study, Hurricane Betsy behaved anomalously,
since it decayed much more slowly than most of the hurricanes striking
the southeast U.S. It is hypothesized that this is due to enhanced sensible
and latent heat fluxes available over the Louisiana marshes, relative
to the dry land found throughout the rest of the region. Ho (1989) suggests
utilizing the Florida decay rate for these hurricanes (e.g. Storm 10,
1893), since this rate better matches decay rates for hurricanes similar
to Betsy.
The best track files for 1851 to 1870 do not include the tropical depression
stages of tropical cyclones. Obtaining adequate information to document
a storm’s beginning and ending tropical depression stages would
be extremely difficult, as most of the available observations focus
upon gale force and stronger wind speeds. Additionally, motivation for
this work was to better document the tropical storm and hurricane stages,
as these account for the large majority of impacts on society (ie. winds,
storm surge and inland flooding). However, the authors were able to
add into HURDAT for the years 1871 to 1898 the dissipating tropical
depression stage for those tropical cyclones that decayed over land.
The Kaplan and DeMaria (1995, 2001) inland decay models were utilized
to calculate wind speed estimates after landfall, in the absence of
in situ wind or pressure data. This was done to ensure that existing
tracks indicated by Neumann et al. (1993, 1999) and the original HURDAT
were not truncated because the tropical cyclones decayed from tropical
storm to tropical depression status. Starting in 1886, both the formative
tropical depression stage and the tropical depression stage of tropical
cyclones as they are decaying over water are included when available
observations allow for a reasonable analysis. This is consistent with
the previous HURDAT methodology. Additionally, where possible, the transition
to the extratropical storm stage was documented and included in the
best track.
The period of 1886 to 1898 in the existing
HURDAT contained rather generic peak intensities: most systems that
were determined to have been tropical storms were assigned peak winds
of 50 kt (26 m s-1) and most hurricanes were assigned peak
winds of 85 kt (44m s-1) (Hebert and McAdie 1997). In fact,
of the 70 hurricanes from 1886 to 1898 in the original HURDAT, only
one was Category 1, 59 were Category 2, 10 were Category 3 and none
were Category 4 and 5. This compares to recent historical averages of
only about a fourth of all hurricanes are Category 2 (Pielke
and Landsea 1998). In many of the tropical storms and hurricanes
for this period, the available ship and land-based observations were
utilized to provide a more realistic peak intensity value, if possible.
For the years 1899 to 1910, Partagas
and Diaz (1996c, 1997, 1999) made extensive use of the Historical
Weather Maps series, a reconstruction of daily surface Northern Hemispheric
synoptic maps accomplished by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Weather Bureau
in the late 1920s. This reconstruction effort was able to incorporate
ship and coastal station data not available in the original tropical
storm and hurricane track determinations. Thus, over 90% of the tracks
for this twelve-year period have been modified.
Limitations and Errors
The tropical storms and hurricanes that stayed out at sea for their
duration and did not encounter ships (or tropical cyclones that sunk
all ships that they overran) obviously will at this point remain undocumented
for the time period of 1851 to 1910. It was estimated that the number
of “missed” tropical storms and hurricanes for the 1851-85
era is on the order of 0-6 per year and on the order of 0-4 per year
for the period of 1886 to 1910. (The higher detection for the latter
period is due to increased ship traffic, larger populations along the
coastlines and more meteorological measurements being taken.) By no
means should the tropical cyclone record over the Atlantic Ocean be
considered complete for either the frequency or intensity of tropical
storms and hurricanes for the years 1851 to 1910. However, more accurate
and complete information is available for landfalling tropical cyclones
along much of the United States coastline. (See the U.S. landfalling
tropical cyclone section for more details.)
Tropical storms and hurricanes that remained out over the Atlantic Ocean
waters during 1851 to 1910 had relatively few chances to be observed
and thus included into this database. This is because, unlike today,
the wide array of observing systems such as geostationary/polar orbiting
satellites, aircraft reconnaissance and radars were not available. Detection
of tropical storms and hurricanes in the second half of the 19th Century
was limited to those tropical storms and hurricanes that affected ships
and those that impacted land. In general, the data should be slightly
more complete for the years 1886 to 1910, than in the preceding decades
because of some improvements in the monitoring network during this period.
Improvements in the monitoring of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes
for the 19th and early 20th centuries can be summarized in the following
timeline (Fitzpatrick 1999, Neumann et al. 1999):
1800s: Ship logs provided tropical cyclone observations (after returning
to port)
1845: First telegraph line completed from Washington, D.C. to Boston
1846: The cup anemometer invented by Robinson
1848: Smithsonian Institute volunteer weather observer network started
in United States
1870: U.S. national meteorological service begun through the Army Signal
Corps
1875: First hurricane forecasting system started by Benito Vines in
Cuba
1890: U.S. weather service transferred to civilian agency - U.S. Weather
Bureau
1898: U.S. Weather Bureau establishes observation stations throughout
Caribbean
1905: Transmitted ship observations of tropical storms and hurricanes
(via radio)
Note that until the invention of radio (1902), the only way to obtain
ship reports of hurricanes at sea was after the ships made their way back
to port. Observations from ship reports were not of use to the fledgling
weather services in the United States and Cuba operationally, though some
of them were available for post-season analyses of the tropical cyclone
activity. These ship reports – many not collected previously - proved
to be invaluable to Ludlum (1963), Ho (1989) and Partagas
and Diaz (1995a, 1995b, 1996b, 1996c, 1997) and others in their historical
reconstruction of past hurricanes.
While geographical positions of tropical cyclones
in HURDAT were estimated to the nearest 0.1 degrees latitude and longitude
(~6 nmi or ~11 km), the average errors were typically much larger in the
late 19th and early 20th Centuries than this precision might imply (Table
7). Holland (1981) demonstrated that even with the presence of numerous
ships and buoys in the vicinity of a strong tropical cyclone that was
also monitored by aircraft reconnaissance, there were substantial errors
in estimating its exact center position from the ship and buoy data alone.
Based upon this, storms documented over the open ocean during the period
of 1851 to 1885 were estimated to have position errors that averaged 120
nmi (220 km), with ranges of 180 to 240 nmi (330 to 440 km) errors being
quite possible. In the later years of 1886 to 1910, this is improved somewhat
to average position errors of around 100 nmi (185 km). At landfall, knowledge
of the location of the tropical cyclone was generally more accurate, as
long as the storm came ashore in a relatively populated region (Table
7). Users should consult the corresponding center fix files to see
if there are actual location center fixes available from ships or coastal
observations. If so, the location error for the nearest six-hourly best
track position would be smaller - on the order of 30 nmi (55 km).
Storm intensity values for 1851 to 1885 were
estimated to the nearest 10 kt (5 m s-1), but were likely to
have large uncertainty as well (Table 7). Starting
in 1886, winds were given in intervals of 5 kt (2.5 m s-1),
consistent with the previous version of HURDAT. Best track intensity estimates
for 1851 to 1910 were based mainly upon observations by ships at sea,
which more often than not, would not sample the very worst part of the
storm (typically only 30-60 nmi (55-110 km) in diameter). Holland (1981)
demonstrated that even in a relatively data-rich region of ship and buoy
observations within the circulation of a tropical cyclone, the actual
intensity was likely to be substantially underestimated. Figures 3
and 4 provide a graphic demonstration of this
for Major Hurricane Erin of 2001 that made a close by-pass of Bermuda.
Aircraft winds extrapolated to the ocean surface indicated maximum sustained
surface winds of just above 100 kt (51 m s-1) in Major Hurricane
Erin (Figure 3). However, despite transiting
within 85 nmi (160 km) of Bermuda, the highest observed surface winds
from ships and coastal stations were only around 40 kt (20 m s-1)
(Figure 4). Such an underestimation of tropical
cyclone intensities was likely common in the pre-satellite and pre-aircraft
reconnaissance era. It was estimated that the intensity measurements for
1851 to 1885 were in error an average of 25 kt (13 m s-1) over
the open ocean, with a bias toward underestimating the true intensity
(Table 7). For the later period of 1886 to 1910,
this was slightly improved – to an average error of 20 kt (10 m
s-1) over the ocean. At landfall, intensity estimates were
improved and show a negligible bias as long as the landfall occurs over
a populated coastline (Table 7).
Metadata Files
All Atlantic basin tropical storms and hurricanes in the new best track
database are accompanied by a “metadata file”. This file
consists of a descriptive paragraph about the particular storm of interest
that provides information about the sources that went into creating
the best track, whether or not a wind-pressure relationship was utilized,
if the Kaplan and DeMaria (1995, 2001) wind decay models were used for
inland wind estimates, and any other pertinent information. Storms and
hurricanes for which the entire lifecycle is available during the period
of 1851 to 1885 (from genesis as a tropical storm, to peak intensity,
to decay to minimal tropical storm or transformation to an extratropical
storm) are so indicated in the metadata file. If this is not indicated
in the metadata file, users of the data are cautioned that only a partial
lifecycle of the particular storm is available. Since documenting the
full lifecycle of tropical cyclones became somewhat more frequent starting
in 1886, only those tropical cyclones that lack archival of their full
lifecycle are so noted in the metadata files for the years 1886 to 1910.
All of the tropical storms and hurricanes for the period of 1851-1910
are considered “UNNAMED”. However, many of these storms
have been recognized by various informal names. These are included in
the metadata file when at all possible. Below is the metadata file for
Storm 1, 1856:
1856/01: Utilized Ho's (1989) work - apparently not used in
Partagas and Diaz's (1995a)
analysis - to alter the track and intensity near the US. Inland winds
over SE US reduced via Kaplan and DeMaria's (1995) inland decay model.
Ship with pressure measurement of 955 mb not in the hurricane's eye
suggests at least 105 kt with the Gulf of Mexico wind-pressure relationship,
utilize 130 kt in best track. Ho's estimate of 934 mb at landfall gives
125 kt, utilize 130 kt in best track - a major hurricane. A small RMW
of 12 nmi supports slight increase of winds over suggested wind-pressure
relationship. Surge value of 11-12' provided by Ludlum (1963) for Last
Island, Louisiana. The storm is also known as the “Last Island
Hurricane” after the destruction caused at that location.
For the cases where Partagas and Diaz or the original HURDAT had listed
a storm, but it was not for some reason included into the revised HURDAT,
an addendum to the Metadata File for that year is included. For example,
here is a case for 1851:
1851 - Additional Notes:
1. The tropical storm listed as #5 in 1851 in Partagas and Diaz (1995a)
was not included into the HURDAT because of the lack of evidence to
suggest that the storm actually existed. Partagas and Diaz had found
an unsupported reference to it in Tannehill (1938), but no other information.
United States
Tropical Cyclones
Tables 8 and 9 summarize the continental U.S.
hurricanes and tropical storms, respectively, for the years 1851-1910
and the states impacted by these systems. U. S. hurricanes are defined
as those hurricanes that are analyzed to cause maximum sustained (1
min) surface (10 m) winds of at least 64 kt (33 m/s) for an open exposure
on the coast or inland in the continental United States. Both hurricanes
that make a direct landfall as well as those that make a close bypass
are considered. Likewise, U.S. tropical storms are those that produced
winds of 34 to 63 kt (18 to 32 m/s) at the coast or inland. In addition
to the parameters also common to HURDAT (e.g. latitude, longitude, maximum
sustained winds and central pressure), the U.S. hurricane compilation
also includes - where available - the RMW, peak observed storm surge
and environmental pressure. For the period of 1851 to 1899, the timing
of U.S. landfalls is estimated to the nearest hour; while for the later
years of 1900 to 1910, the more complete observational network allowed
for an indication of U.S. hurricanes and tropical storms to the nearest
10 minutes of landfall. As was utilized in HURDAT, maximum sustained
wind speeds are estimated to the nearest 10 kt for the years of 1851
to 1885, while a more precise measure of 5 kt increments are used for
the period of 1886 to 1910.
As mentioned earlier, because of the lack of
continuously populated coastal regions over this era, this record represents
an incomplete listing of the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones
that have impacted the United States. Based upon analysis of "settled
regions" (defined as at least two inhabitants per square mile)
from U.S. Census reports and other historical analyses (Department of
the Interior 1895, Kagan 1966, and Tanner 1995), estimated dates are
provided for when accurate tropical cyclone records began in specified
regions of the United States (Table 10). Prior
to these dates, tropical storms or hurricanes -especially smaller systems
like Andrew in 1992 and Bret in 1999 - might have been missed completely
or may have had their true intensity underestimated.
As an example of the intensity underestimation
bias of a landfalling hurricane along a relatively uninhabited coastal
region, consider the case of Storm 2, 1882. This tropical cyclone had
been characterized by Dunn and Miller (1960) as a “minimal”
storm in northwest Florida based upon a minimum sea level pressure measurement
of just 994 mb and a 50 kt (26 m s-1) wind observed at Pensacola.
However, only hours before landfall the barkentine "Cato"
measured a central pressure of 949 mb, an observation apparently unknown
to Dunn and Miller. Thus, this storm was likely a major hurricane at
landfall, though the intense inner core missed making a direct strike
on any populated areas. It is certain that many other storms (both in
the U.S. and other land masses) made landfall without ships or coastal
communities sampling the intense inner core, resulting in an underestimation
of their intensity at landfall. Such underestimations of landfall intensity
are particularly problematic for locations such as south Florida, where,
for example, Miami was not incorporated until 1896. There is less uncertainty
for an area like New England, which has been fairly densely populated
since well before the 1850s. Despite these limitations, this analysis
does allow for extending the accurate historical record back in time
for several locations along the U.S. coastline.
For some U.S. hurricanes, a central pressure
estimate was obtained from the work of Ho et al. (1987), Ho (1989) or
other references (so noted in the metadata file for the appropriate
storms), which was then used to estimate maximum wind speeds through
application of one of the new wind-pressure relationships. If no measured
or analyzed (via the Ho [1989] methodology) central pressure was described
in the metadata file, then the winds at landfall were determined from
coastal station observations or ships immediately offshore, destruction
at the coast and/or observed storm surge values. In general, it was
extremely rare for land-based anemometers to actually measure what was
suspected to be the maximum sustained surface winds. This was due to
the relative sparsity of coastal stations combined with the small RMW
typical of hurricanes as well as the inability of anemometers of the
era to survive in extreme wind events. In the cases where there was
no central pressure value directly available, the estimated winds at
landfall were then used via the wind-pressure relationship to back out
a reasonable central pressure. In either case, the objective was to
provide both an estimate of the maximum sustained wind at landfall and
a central pressure for all U.S. hurricanes.
Evaluation
of the HURDAT Revision by NHC
This re-analysis effort has been done with considerable interaction
with the hurricane specialists and researchers at the National Hurricane
Center. The HURDAT database has been maintained and updated yearly by
NHC for decades. Thus all revisions to the existing best track (or extensions
back in time as is the case for the period of 1851 to 1885) have been
examined and approved by the NHC Best Track Change Committee. Comments
by the NHC Best Track Change Committee and the authors’ replies
back to the Committee are also available via the HURDAT re-analysis
web page.
Future Re-analysis Work
Historical tropical cyclone reconstructions are inevitably subject to
revisions whenever new archived information is uncovered. Thus while several
thousand alterations and additions to HURDAT have been completed for the
years 1851 to 1910, this does not insure that there may not be further
changes once new information is made available. Such an archive of historical
data – especially one based upon quasi-objective interpretations
of limited observations – should always be one that can be revised
when more data or better interpretations of exisiting information becomes
available.
However, much more work still needs to be accomplished for the Atlantic
hurricane database. One essential project is a Partagas and Diaz style
re-analysis for both the years before 1851 and for the pre-aircraft reconnaissance
era of 1911 to 1943. The former may lead to a complete dataset of U.S.
landfalling hurricanes for the Atlantic coast from Georgia to New England
back to at least 1800, given the relatively high density of population
extending that far into the past. The latter project would likely yield
a much higher quality dataset for the entire Atlantic basin – especially
for frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones – given the availability
of revised compilations of ship data (e.g. Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere
Data Set, Woodruff et al. 1987). Another possibility is to re-examine
the intensity record of tropical cyclones since 1944 by utilizing the
original aircraft reconnaissance data in the context of today’s
understanding of tropical cyclone eyewall structure and best extrapolations
from flight-level winds to the surface winds (e.g. Dunion et al. 2002).
Finally, efforts could be directed to extending the scope of the HURDAT
database to include other parameters of interest, such as RMW and radii
of gale and hurricane force winds by quadrant.
Regardless of the final direction pursued by future research into the
re-analysis of Atlantic hurricanes, it is hoped that efforts detailed
here have already expanded the possibilities for the utilization of the
Atlantic hurricane database. Users now have access to a more complete
record of Atlantic hurricanes, one that extends further back in time and
one that provides more information regarding the limitations and error
sources. In any planning for the future, a thorough appreciation of past
events helps one prepare for possibilities to come. Atlantic hurricanes,
arguably the most destructive of all natural phenomena in the Western
Hemisphere, demand our attention for their understanding to better prepare
society for the impacts that they bring. This re-analysis of Atlantic
basin tropical storms and hurricanes that now provide users with 150 years
of record may be able to assist in such endeavors in at least a small
way.
Acknowledgments
This work has been sponsored by a NOAA grant "The National Hurricane
Center HURDAT File: Proposed Revision" (NA76P0369) as well as through
a grant from the Insurance Friends of the OAR.
The authors wish to thank the NHC Best Track Change Committee (Jack
Beven, Jim Gross, Brian Jarvinen, Richard Pasch, Ed Rappaport and Chair
- Colin McAdie) for their encouragement and detailed suggestions that
have helped to quality control the thousands of alterations and additions
to HURDAT. Special thanks for their individual contributions toward
this project are also given to Sim Aberson, Auguste Boissonnade, Emery
Boose, Mike Chenoweth, Hugh Cobb, Paul Hebert, Paul Hungerford, Lorne
Ketch, Doug Mayes, Cary Mock, Ramon Perez Suarez, David Roth, Al Sandrik,
David Vallee and Roger Williams. The authors also thank John Kaplan,
Rick Murnane and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments
on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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