Final Comments on the miscellaneous revisions to HURDAT for 1930 and earlier storms

August 2011

  1. Cary Mock's modification of storm #2 of 1885: Concur.

  2. Mike Chenoweth's modification of storm #2 of 1857: The committee concurs with the prposed changes. There is one typo in a reference to the "Wilimington Journal of 19 September 1867" that should probably read 1857.

  3. Mike Chenoweth's modification of storm #8 of 1859: The committee's consensus for the intensity at the Florida landfall is 80 kt - Category 1. Please adjust the proposed HURDAT track to reflect this. There was also discussion about changing the timing of extratropical transition. However, the consensus is to leave this unchanged.

  4. Chris Landsea's modification of storm #1 of 1852: Suggest that the metadata state "much smaller RMW, perhaps as small as 10 n mi". We don't have a really good grasp on this RWM given the lack of accounts of a full eye passage. Otherwise concur.

  5. Chris Landsea's modification of storm #9 of 1887: Concur.

  6. Chris Landsea's modification of storm #10 of 1893: Concur.

  7. Questions about storm #2 of 1899: Concur.

  8. Mike Chenoweth's removal of storm #7 of 1866: The committee is split on the proposed removal of this system. The data is rather ambiguous. On one side, the data provided by Chenoweth for the southeastern U. S. are hard to reconcile with the gales and apparent circulation documented by Fernandez-Partagas. On the other hand, the data from Norfolk is not consistent with a low passing offshore, which means either the low off the southeastern U. S. coast tracked much farther west than suggest by Fernandez-Partagas or the reports were influenced by a separate low. The observations at Georgetown, South Carolina suggest that whatever low was off the southeastern U. S. coast was east of the oncoming cold front and thus may well have had some tropical characteristics.

    Based on the conflicting evidence, the decision is to revert this track back to that originally proposed by Fernandez-Partagas, with no extension into the Bahamas. The temperature data for New Bedford, Massachuestts suggests that the cyclone became extratropical or was absorbed by a second low prior reaching New England, which needs to be taken into account in the metadata and any related climatological work.

  9. Mike Chenoweth's re-analysis and combination of storms #1 and #2 in 1871: The committee first notes that the wind directions at Clear Lake are not quite consistent with the center passing east of the station. The winds first went from ESE to NW (gale), suggesting the center went almost directly over the station. Then the winds went back to SE, suggesting another direct hit. This part of the track should be modified to show some sort of cusp or stall point just north of Clear Lake.

    The committee notes that it previous asked for all of the observations for this system. It still needs the observations from north of the Houston-Galveston area (such as Gilmer, Texas) to determine if the proposed revised track is correct. It should be noted that the committee chairman examined the Signal Corp weather maps available online and found they totally lacked data in this area.

    At this time, the committee cannot approve the proposed changes due to the incomplete data. This item is still open.

  10. Chris Landsea's proposed new tropical storm, 1899: The committee concurs with adding this system to HURDAT.

  11. System of 9-17 June 1900 (additional notes section): Concur with leaving this out of HURDAT.

  12. System of 4-11 October 1901 (additional notes section): Concur with leaving this out of HURDAT.

  13. System of 7-18 August 1909 (additional notes section): Concur with leaving this out of HURDAT.

  14. Proposed new tropical storm, 1909: Concur with the changes from the original submission.

  15. Gladstein's proposed change to storm #2 of 1915: The committee's consensus is to use a Category 4 intensity for the western Cuba landfall. The 27.00 inch pressure reading should be noted in the metadata, along with information about the lack of documentation that make it impossible to use at face value at this time.

  16. Gladstein's proposed change to storm #4 of 1925: The committee concurs with the submitted HURDAT entry, so this system can be officially downgraded to a tropical storm at its U. S. landfall. The committee chair notes that when he created the proposed HURDAT entry he forgot to take out the SSS=1 indicator of a hurricane landfall in the header record. This needs to be removed for the actual HURDAT entry.

  17. Revisions (instead of removal) to storm #3 of 1882: Concur with the proposed changes.