Recorded presentation7B.2
The Atlantic basin hurricane database re-analysis for the decades of the 1920s and 1930s
Christopher W. Landsea, NOAA/NWS/TPC/NHC, Miami, FL
The Atlantic basin hurricane database re-analysis project is to extend
and improve the quality of the National Hurricane Center's North
Atlantic best track and intensity hurricane database, HURDAT, from 1851
to the present. This effort is helping to correct several errors and
biases, apply more consistent analysis techniques and modern
interpretations, and better determine tropical cyclone (TC) landfall
attributes associated with HURDAT. For the efforts during the 1920s to
the 1930s, the reanalysis relies upon station observation records,
historical weather maps, ship reports, and written journalistic and
private accounts of the tropical storms and hurricanes. An overview of
the proposed revisions to HURDAT for these early decades of the 20th
Century is presented along with an updated assessment of the frequency
and impact of various intensity TCs for the individual years.
Statistical comparisons of the total number of TCs, hurricanes, major
hurricanes, and landfalling storms are made to the modern
climatological
record. Additionally, the period is re-assessed to see how it fits into
the earlier notions of multidecadal swings of TC activity during the
period. Special attention is given to the reanalysis of some of the
catastrophic hurricanes of the era including the
1926 Great Miami hurricane, the 1928 San Felippe/Lake Okeechobee
hurricane, the Category 4 hurricane that made landfall in Texas in
1932,
the Category 5 hurricane that devastated parts of Cuba in 1932, the
1935
Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys as a Category 5 and the
1938 New England major hurricane.
Session 7B, Tropical cyclones
Tuesday, 13 January 2009, 3:30 PM-5:30 PM, Room 129B
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