Winds gusting to hurricane force?

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Philip Duncan
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Philip Duncan »

btw - you guys do realise the dictionary definition of the word "mini" is "smaller than the standard" or "something very small of its kind".

:-)
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by RWood »

I think you've lost this one Philip (the :"mini" horror).

Where's the data for Te Aroha? Humans make notoriously poor measuring instruments...
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

philip duncan wrote:btw - you guys do realise the dictionary definition of the word "mini" is "smaller than the standard" or "something very small of its kind".

:-)
I thought it was a small car made at Crowley near Oxford by those Morris Dancing car makers in the 1960s'/1970s :B :?:
The Oxford Dictionary states that the prefix means miniature. I don't think tornados are miniature #-o
Any tornadoic form is a result from major instability in the air, associated with possible severe thunderstorm activity, whether it is in New Zealand or the United States of North America, that region of North America below the country of Canada,
Possibly our tornados are not of the strength and size of the ones experienced there because we are not as big and don't have the land mass to construct 'proper sized tornados' out of our thunderstorms.
I find that the term 'mini-tornado' may of been coined by an USA storm-chaser who was once here and said "These twisters are only just mini-tornados compared to the ones we get back home" :> ;-)
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Nev »

Yes the Fujita scale has been updated, however the only thing that's really changed is the estimated wind-speeds required to produced the damage that these speeds were originally determined from. So there's no real need to revise the F-scale assigned to past events, just apply the revised wind-speeds. And, unless you really want to be pedantic, you can still say either 'F-scale' or 'EF-scale'.

Now, getting back to my pet-peeve, I think this quote from an old Australian ABC article I have probably says it all (sorry I don't have a link) ...
'The weather bureau wants you: fancy a job as a storm spotter?'
08/02/2006

... If you want to fire up a meteorologist, just mention a 'mini-tornado' and they'll almost explode. I think people do it sometimes just to get us worked up, because we're all such a passionate bunch in here. Look, a tornado is a tornado. They range in size from what we call an F-0 to what we call an F-5 tornado, which is what you see occurring in the United States. When people say 'mini tornado' they're almost putting them down as 'we're not as big as the Americans', and I guess there's a danger in that - because tornadoes are still dangerous, still have damaging winds and people can still get killed. ...

- Claire Yeo, Severe Weather Meteorologist for the Bureau of Meteorology.
Last edited by Nev on Fri 01/08/2008 00:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Philip Duncan »

Well i have to say, despite arguing my point and defending it...I have actually changed my language lately and with regards to the destruction in Papamoa yesterday I simply called it a "tornado". So I am listening to you all! :-)

With reference to Te Aroha - yes I agree that humans are terrible measuring intruments. But I grew up in Te Aroha and I know what the winds are capable of. There is no town in NZ that gets easterly winds as rough as this place. The damage - when you see giant Macracarpas (sp?) completely uprooted and concrete powerpoles snapped in half, you know that, that is no ordinary gale...especially when you notice that every second tree is damaged and every single property has something broken, uprooted, or destroyed on it. I know fire officers there and the mayor - these guys know their stats and aren't known for getting it wrong. My father also lives there - and he is incredibly conservative - and he said he's never seen anything like it. I concede about the term mini-tornado but fiercly defend the use of the term "hurricane force". In this town it was a hurricane...the winds were "damaging" for many hours.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Cook »

philip duncan wrote: I concede about the term mini-tornado but fiercly defend the use of the term "hurricane force". In this town it was a hurricane...the winds were "damaging" for many hours.
You can defend it till you go blue in the face, just don't use the term hurricane force unless you mean: "a sustained wind speed of 64 knots (32.7 m/s) or more - that is, the wind speed averaged over a period of 10 minutes.",
and never ever say gusting to hurricane force because that is meaningless.

It's hard enough to get the message across to the public regarding the weather, confusion is sadly commonplace. It does not make matters any better when self appointed weather analysts add to the muddle.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Philip Duncan »

Youre not listening to me - the gusts were over 10 minutes....perhaps I shouldn't have said gusts...I should've just said "hurricance force winds".

Anyway I'm bored with this... I was right, get over it. Besides - what gave you the right to be rude to me just because you disagree with my statement?

And I'm not self appointed btw...I've was hired by the Radio Network and they created this position.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Cook »

philip duncan wrote:Youre not listening to me - the gusts were over 10 minutes....perhaps I shouldn't have said gusts...I should've just said "hurricance force winds".

Anyway I'm bored with this... I was right, get over it. Besides - what gave you the right to be rude to me just because you disagree with my statement?

And I'm not self appointed btw...I've was hired by the Radio Network and they created this position.
It seems that you don't understand the term gust since you said "the gusts were over 10 minutes". May I suggest this resource:
http://www.weather.com/glossary/

A gust is :"A sudden significant increase in or rapid fluctuations of wind speed. Peak wind must reach at least 16 knots (18 miles per hour) and the variation between peaks and lulls is at least 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour). The duration is usually less twenty seconds."

I think you are starting to get the picture though since you said: "perhaps I shouldn't have said gusts...I should've just said "hurricance force winds".
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Philip Duncan »

You explain to me you want the public to understand the weather, but the biggest fault scientists can have with the every day person is that they either a) bore the public with too many stats or b) get far too detailed with numbers. I am not about dumbing down the weather but your explanation of gusts is definitely, in my opinion, a little too heavy for the every day person in Te Aroha who went through that storm. The winds came in "waves" some lasted a few minutes, others lasted 15 minutes.

I also feared that saying "hurricane force winds" would be considered sensationalising. It's hard to please everyone all the time and I try my very best to educate the public but also please the science world who live very conservatively by the rules. The middle ground between the too can be hard to find.

Thanks for the debate though.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Nev »

Phil, if it's any consolation, TV1's weather-presenter, Karen, who I think is actually a trained meteorologist, has on more than one occasion used the same analogy of 'winds gusting to Hurricane-force'. So you're in good company. ;)
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Myself »

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:
I thought it was a small car made at Crowley near Oxford by those Morris Dancing car makers in the 1960s'/1970s :B :?:
The Oxford Dictionary states that the prefix means miniature. I don't think tornados are miniature #-o
Any tornadoic form is a result from major instability in the air, associated with possible severe thunderstorm activity, whether it is in New Zealand or the United States of North America, that region of North America below the country of Canada,
Possibly our tornados are not of the strength and size of the ones experienced there because we are not as big and don't have the land mass to construct 'proper sized tornados' out of our thunderstorms.
I find that the term 'mini-tornado' may of been coined by an USA storm-chaser who was once here and said "These twisters are only just mini-tornados compared to the ones we get back home" :> ;-)
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Michael »

I think people (general average joe blogs) really dont care about scientific stats,though always still required for reasons.Are they interested in thickness,metars,850 aloft temperatures,if its 100kmh or 80 with a certain time period gusts or if its occasional rain,scattered rain or just widespread rain?
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by RWood »

I've had a look at the sparse information available for Te Aroha, in fact for its TV transmitter at 951m ASL. From records 1979-1986 it had an average windspeed of about 9.25 metres/sec = 33.3 kph. That's a high value, though slightly lower than at Southwest Cape (Stewart Is). The highest gust speed recorded in that time was 46.8 m/sec = 168.5 kph. No information on sustained 10-min+ speeds [on that there's a well-known case at Mt John in Sept 1970 which had one period averaging a remarkable 210kph in a fierce NWer]. I would guess that the high easterly winds in Te Aroha are made worse at intervals by some sort of downstream rotor effect produced by the mountain. I've seen that in a modest way below hills on Wellington's south coast when very strong NW winds are blowing. The coastal path from Owhiro Bay round to Red Rocks gets shelter from moderate NW winds but when they are strong enough one can feel powerful blasts from the opposite direction from time to time. Any more information would be interesting.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Michael »

Like say in Thames and that area the easterlies can get fierce too with high gusts,but move on the plains and the speed is more uniform,probably tunnelling from the hills.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Vertigo »

philip duncan wrote:You explain to me you want the public to understand the weather, but the biggest fault scientists can have with the every day person is that they either a) bore the public with too many stats or b) get far too detailed with numbers. I am not about dumbing down the weather...
maybe you dont intend to, but whatever it is, its slightly misleading is all. i would have personally called them strong gales, maybe very. i had a number of people complaining to me that the media misled them with the term "cyclone", because it certainly wasnt a widespread level of destruction like a true cyclone.

re: tornados.. why not call them all tornados, and designate the strongest ones "strong tornados"?
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Weather Watcher »

This threads seems to have two different discussions going on...

Anyway, regarding the use of the term "mini-tornado", my main problem with it is that the term is being used to describe any sudden strong or damaging wind gust which may or may not be associated with a thunderstorm. My feeling is that most of the reports of 'mini-tornadoes' we hear through the media are NOT tornadoes at all, they are either downbursts, or some other form of strong pre-frontal/pre-heavy-precip wind gust. I think that most of the real tornados that we get in this country are reported correctly as "tornados", usually because either someone has seen it (in most of the mini-tornado reports, no-one has actually seen a tornado!) or because the damage is fairly widespread (i.e more than a couple of houses and a trampoline being thrown over the fence). Personally I favour the terms small tornado (I don't think any of them are "weak"), tornado, or damaging tornado.

Regarding the use of the term "winds gusting to hurricane force", I think the very first post in this thread is correct. Winds don't gust to hurricane force, "hurricane force" is a description of a sustained wind. Having personally experienced a hurricane in Fiji and having lived in Wellington for many years, there is a huge difference between sustained winds of 120km/hr and gusts to 120km/hr.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by gllitz »

Weather Watcher wrote:This threads seems to have two different discussions going on...

Anyway, regarding the use of the term "mini-tornado", my main problem with it is that the term is being used to describe any sudden strong or damaging wind gust which may or may not be associated with a thunderstorm. My feeling is that most of the reports of 'mini-tornadoes' we hear through the media are NOT tornadoes at all, they are either downbursts, or some other form of strong pre-frontal/pre-heavy-precip wind gust. I think that most of the real tornados that we get in this country are reported correctly as "tornados", usually because either someone has seen it (in most of the mini-tornado reports, no-one has actually seen a tornado!) or because the damage is fairly widespread (i.e more than a couple of houses and a trampoline being thrown over the fence). Personally I favour the terms small tornado (I don't think any of them are "weak"), tornado, or damaging tornado.

Regarding the use of the term "winds gusting to hurricane force", I think the very first post in this thread is correct. Winds don't gust to hurricane force, "hurricane force" is a description of a sustained wind. Having personally experienced a hurricane in Fiji and having lived in Wellington for many years, there is a huge difference between sustained winds of 120km/hr and gusts to 120km/hr.
I've been through 4 hurricanes/tropical cyclones in my lifetime, and I have to agree with the above....there is a VERY big/huge/massive difference between sustained winds and gusts...
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Cook »

gllitz wrote: I've been through 4 hurricanes/tropical cyclones in my lifetime, and I have to agree with the above....there is a VERY big/huge/massive difference between sustained winds and gusts...
Thanks, I am pleased to see some people understand this. It's just too bad that it almost seems as though we actually need to have experienced this ourselves for it to sink in properly.

All this may be hard for the average Joe in the street to grasp but I do think that it is very important that those who's job it is to convey weather information to the public do so correctly and consistently. I think they all mean well and I have high hopes for the future. Thanks to all who have contributed so far, particularly those who have actually experienced hurricanes!
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

note that exposed places in NZ in the weekend did actualy reach 10 minute average speeds that were hurricane force (i.e Channel Island and Tiri Tiri Matagangi island in the hauraki gulf)
Last edited by Manukau heads obs on Fri 01/08/2008 14:15, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Wildland »

Re: “mini tornado”
I suspect the general public reading our debate about mini tornadoes would think there was much ado about nothing.

Nevertheless, I find the term annoying, but had to do some thinking about “why.” 0_o

Hefting the trusty Oxford onto the desk I find that mini is an abbreviation of miniature. The dictionary describes the adjective miniature as, “1 much smaller than normal, 2 represented on a small scale.” In its first form the use of mini tornado would grate because it implied that the tornado was physically smaller than normal when we normally rate tornadoes according to their strength (energy) and the destruction they cause rather than their physical size.

Unfortunately, the Oxford's use of scale in their second description undoes any argument for banning the use of mini to describe a tornado. Drat. :banghead:

Even so, I'd be happier with light, weak or some other descriptor that more accurately qualifies the strength of the beast rather than something which might imply it was physically small.

Assigning an EF rating to a tornado would be useful, and allow the general public to draw a comparison with hurricane category. This would be helpful when talking about past events such as (imaginary events) “... the EF3 tornado that struck Greymouth in 2005...” or “... the EF1 tornado that was reported in Mt. Maunganui in 2008...” People are quite able to understand the relative size implied by such terms as category 5 hurricane, magnitude 7 earthquake and gale-force wind without knowing the exact technical meaning. There's no reason why tornadoes can't be included.

And now, like John Gaul, I have joined the NZ Weather Forum New Smilies Society. :crazy: :hug: :bounce:
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by jrj »

I like the Aussie term "willy-willy" _b

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

i have tried to think of mini as small scale (i.e area of destruction) when hearing reports of a mini tornado
if you think of it that way, that works me thinks
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Nev »

Manukau heads observer wrote:not that exposed places in NZ in the weekend did actualy reach 10 minute average speeds that were hurricane force (i.e Channel Island and Tiri Tiri Matagangi island in the hauraki gulf)
Think you meant 'Note that exposed places...' :?:

Yes, although Channel Island figures can sometimes be slightly misleading, because easterlies get funnelled between between the Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island, which in turn effects Tiritiri Matagangi Island on the other side of the Gulf - similar to the affect the Manukua Heads have during westerlies on the Manukua Harbour and all the way to towards the Tamaki Estuary.
James wrote:I like the Aussie term "willy-willy" _b

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil
Important to note that Wiily-Willys (Dust-Devils) aren't part of the tornado family though!
(Just to save on confusion.) ;)
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Manukau heads obs »

ops, yes, meant, note that #-o
and yes, am aware of the funneling/channeling effect, was just point out that some locations did get to those windspeed values :wave:
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Re: Winds gusting to hurricane force?

Unread post by Nev »

Yes, Tiritiri's probably the one to watch during easterlies, unless of course you happen to be travelling to Great Barrier... :crazy:
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