Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog : Florida Insurance Lawyer & Attorney : Merlin Law Group Law Firm : Tampa, Houston, Coral Gables, Gulfport

Why do some meteorologists believe they can perform an accurate analysis of what occurred at a specific location from hundreds of miles away using only available data? Aren’t such things as local topography, microscale effects, elevation, and other environmental aspects as important as the macroscale situation in determining what happened at a specific address?

Why do trees blow down with winds between 50 to 55 miles per hour with the Beaufort Wind Scale, yet aren’t affected by wind until 104 miles per hour in the Saffir-Simpson Scale? Are trees stronger in hurricane-prone areas?

Why do we use statistics to determine what occurred at a specific address? Aren’t statistics a bit over-blown?

Why did Dr. Robert Simpson (yes, he is that Dr. Simpson) state that the release of the Saffir-Simpson Scale was “premature” during a radio interview in 1991?

Why does the public continually blame the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for “missed forecasts”, yet deny these same agencies the funds and manpower to do the job? If you want better weather information, write to your congress person and demand more funding for the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center.

Why aren’t realistic wind flows and characteristics used in evaluating hurricane damage? Each situation is different, so each evaluation must be different.

Why do we make something simple into such a complicated process?

Many people have heard of Dr. Theodore Fujita, the developer of the renowned Fujita Scale used to categorize tornadoes by intensity. The first Fujita Scale was presented in 1971, two years after the Saffir-Simpson Scale was released to the public. One of Dr. Fujita’s goals was to make the Fujita Scale a smooth transition from the Beaufort Wind Scale. Fujita explained explicitly that "F-scale winds are estimated from structural and/or tree damage, the estimated wind speed applies to the height of the apparent damage above the ground."

This means that the Fujita Scale only applies at the height of damage, whether it is 8 feet above the ground or 40 feet above the ground. There is nothing in Dr. Fujita’s definition that states the winds have to be measured precisely at 33 feet above the ground, yet some experts use wind measurements from many miles away recorded at 33 feet to substantiate their “opinions.”

Anyone who thinks that wind speeds measured at one location can be applied to other locations doesn’t understand the atmosphere. The atmosphere is made up of wind bands that flow up and down easily, causing wind speed increases and decreases that are not seen or measured, but we know they exist by observing how these winds affect objects around us.

I am constantly amazed by those who assert that we MUST use wind speeds recorded at some location 30 miles away because that is the only location where official measurements are made. That is pure bunk.

Using that logic is like telling a police officer the reason you were doing 70 miles per hour on a back road is because the speed limit is 70 miles per hour 30 miles away. Would a police officer buy that excuse? It never worked for me.

Let’s all use realistic scenarios; not studies that were performed many years ago in another part of the country. Let’s compare apples to apples.

With that being said, Dr. Fujita devised his scale based upon a 3 second gust; not the sustained 1 minute wind speed. The Enhanced Fujita Scale is based on the same 3 second gust principle.

To me, this means that Dr. Fujita clearly understood the force of wind and the impact of wind force. If a 3 second gust can cause all types of damage in one occurrence, how much damage can be experienced if there are multiple gusts?

According to Dr. Fujita’s Enhanced F Scale Damage Indicators, the “expected wind speed” to cause the uplifting of a roof deck, loss of more than 20% of roof covering material, the collapse of a chimney at a 1 or 2 story residence is only 97 miles per hour. The lowest boundary for this type of damage is only 81 miles per hour. If a 3 second gust can cause this level of damage, what happens in a hurricane with continuous gusts? What happens with hurricanes that have continuous wind speeds at or above the “expected wind speed” for any type of structure?

The following is taken from the Storm Prediction Center website for The Enhanced Fujita Scale:

Over the years, the F-Scale has revealed the following weaknesses:

• It is subjective based solely on the damage caused by a tornado
• No recognition in difference in construction
• Difficult to apply with no damage indicators
• if the 3/4-mile wide tornado does not hit any structures, what F-scale should be assigned?
• Subject to bias
• Based on the worst damage (even if it is one building or house)
• Overestimates wind speeds greater than F3

And the F-Scale has had its misuses over the years:

• Too much reliance on the estimated wind speeds
• Oversimplification of the damage description
• Judge the F-scale by the appearance of the tornado cloud
• Unrecognizing weak structures
• mobile homes
• modified homes

The meteorological and engineering communities recognized these weaknesses and took steps to improve the original Fujita Scale. In 2006, a panel of selected experts devised an Enhanced Fujita Scale, which was accepted by the National Weather Service.

The new EF Scale lowered the wind speed ranges necessary to cause damage to a variety of structures and added a more refining step to the evaluation process by breaking out each type of structure with degrees of damage (DOD). I believe this addition is great because it is more realistic. One of the main weaknesses of the original Fujita Scale was that it thought of all structures as equal. The EF Scale, with its’ DOD indicators, is a wonderful improvement to the Fujita Scale.

I question why some of the panel members of the Enhanced Fujita Scale project ignore their own recommendations when assessing damages from a hurricane?

How can anyone apply guidelines from the Great Plains to hurricanes along the Gulf Coast? This is comparing apples to elephants.

For both Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Ike (2008), some experts state emphatically that there were no tornadoes along the coastline. Published studies from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center clearly state that there are tornadoes in each and every land-falling hurricane, including the coastline. Why the disconnect?

Just because a person has a lot of knowledge about tornadoes in Canada, is he an expert about tornadoes anywhere in the world? Does this mean that everything that applies to Canadian storms also applies equally to the Gulf Coast? I don’t think so.

That is like someone from Canada coming to the Gulf Coast and trying to “shovel” all our rain…it doesn’t work.

Many people will emphatically argue that the EF Scale and the original scale pertain only to tornadoes. Yes, tornadoes are a complete vortex with tremendous upward vertical motion which embellishes the interior wind speeds of a tornado. People tell me that it is the constant rotation and rate of change in shear and wind speed of a tornado that is so critical in causing damage.

The wind field of a hurricane is inherently rotational. The rate of change in wind speed and shear of a tornado can be found within several weather elements of a hurricane. The National Center for Atmospheric Research and NOAA state “hurricane tornadoes are more frequent than classic Midwest tornadoes because there is more rotation in the hurricane environment to draw upon.”

A tornado is a relatively short-lived phenomenon when compared to most other weather elements. The majority of time when tornadoes occur, they contain the highest wind speeds of the surrounding atmospheric environment on the surface. The rate of change of wind speed and rotation (shear) between the surrounding atmospheric environment and the tornado is tremendous, yet Dr. Fujita never mentioned that a specific rate of change in wind speed and shear were necessary to cause the listed damages. All Dr. Fujita listed were wind speeds.

With the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the panel members gave specific speed ranges to a variety of structures, each with 10 separate degrees of damage. The EF Scale is very detailed and thorough.

My question is if Dr. Fujita and the members of the Enhanced Fujita Scale project believe that a 3 second gust of 97 miles an hour will cause considerable damage to a 2 story residence, why can’t hours and hours of wind gusts equal to 95 miles an hour result in more damage?

It seems that people miss the point that structures are enduring hours and hours of punishing wind speeds and associated elements. If a 3 second gust can collapse a chimney, why wouldn’t the winds that enter the house after this specific damage be considered factors in the damage?

If a 97 mile s per hour gust can cause the uplifting of a roof deck, what happens when that 97 miles per hour gust occurs repeatedly for several hours? A gust of only 121 miles per hour will shift a 1 or 2 story residence off its foundation. What if gusts this high occur numerous times over several hours along with high winds in between each gust to 121 miles per hour? If wind gusts to 96 miles per hour cause glass breakage in windows and doors, why don’t we consider what happens once the winds enter the house and cause damage on the inside?

We need to stop focusing only on the maximum 3 second gust. We should be looking at how continuous hours of wind pummeling affects any structure. A good heavyweight boxer can knock you out with one punch, but a good lightweight boxer can do more damage to you after hours of punching. Either way, you lose the fight.

So I ask, why do we focus on the highest wind gust and surge depth, when lesser winds can cause as much or more damage? Maybe we should be using a different ruler.

-Rocco Calaci

An interview conducted by Ms. Debi Iacovelli in 1991 with Dr. Robert Simpson revealed the co-author’s thoughts on the hurricane scale carrying his name. In the interview, Dr. Simpson stated that “It's [the Saffir-Simpson Scale] been misinterpreted, misused in a lot of places.” He also added “The scale as devised, expresses what the extreme conditions can be expected from a hurricane of a certain type and a certain category.”

This means with a Category 3 hurricane the extreme level of damage and destruction should be “[s]ome structural damage to small residences and utility buildings with a minor amount of curtain-wall failures. Mobile homes are destroyed.” Yet time and time again, post storm observations prove that a Category 3 hurricane is capable of causing extensive and widespread damages to structures.

Hurricane Ivan (2004) was listed as a Category 3 hurricane, yet the level of damage and destruction equaled a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. In fact, if you read the expected level of damage for a Category 5 hurricane, it states that “Massive evacuation of residential areas may be required.” Obviously the Saffir-Simpson Scale infers that massive evacuation isn’t necessary for any hurricane below a Category 5. Tell that to the people that died in Hurricane Katrina (2005) and it was listed as a Category 3 hurricane.

Another factor on why the Saffir-Simpson Scale should not be used is the differences between it and the Beaufort Wind Scale. The Beaufort Wind Scale is still used extensively throughout the world and has been accepted by the World Meteorological Organization and the National Weather Service. The Beaufort Wind Scale is contained in the Federal Meteorological Handbook Number 1, Surface Weather Observations, considered the “bible” for surface observations.

Time and time again, we see that the Beaufort Wind Scale (BWS) is more accurate than the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The BWS lists winds from 55 to 63 miles per hour capable of uprooting trees and causing considerable structural damage.” Conversely, the Saffir-Simpson Scale states that winds must be stronger than 96 miles per hour to uproot trees and stronger than 110 miles per hour to cause considerable structural damages. Why the disconnect?

It is my personal experience with Hurricanes Erin, Opal (1995), Danny (1997), Ivan (2004), Dennis, Katrina and Rita (2005), that trees were uprooted with regularity when the sustained winds were below 90 miles per hour. During Hurricane Opal, I stood outside the weather station at Eglin AFB, Florida (I was the instructor-meteorologist in an Air Force position) and the winds were consistently sustained below 90 miles an hour for the majority of the storm, yet I witnessed large trees uprooted and blown down streets, concrete block buildings torn apart and large roofs ripped from structures creating massive amounts of flying debris. Hurricane Opal was categorized as a Category 3 hurricane, but the destruction level was likened to a Category 5 storm.

The Saffir-Simpson Scale does not take into account the speed of movement or storm size to categorize a hurricane. If a structure endures hours and hours of battering from winds between 75 to 90 miles an hour, it will still suffer extensive damages. The Saffir-Simpson Scale has no explanation for such elements such as wind shear, ground turbulence, microbursts and vortices.

Everyone becomes fixated on the highest wind speed and associated storm surge, yet the Saffir-Simpson Scale makes no provision for length of time a structure is affected by hurricane force winds.

I like to use the following analogy for hurricane damage. A house endures hours and hours of hurricane force winds and all the associated “forgotten” elements such as wind force, wind shear, ground turbulence and other forces. After several hours, the house is destroyed, but with the area evacuated no one witnesses the destruction. The storm surge arrives hours later and sweeps away the debris from the destroyed home. After the hurricane, folks come back and see the flooding and standing water and assume all damages were created by the storm surge.

Even when there are eyewitnesses to the destruction, records indicate storm surge as the factor in destruction of properties.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi coast line, the central pressure fit into Category 4, the storm surge was a Category 5 element, yet the winds were only estimated as Category 3? There is a definite disconnect.

Of course, we are limited in what elements are accurately measured because less than 1% of the affected area in Hurricane Katrina had any type of reliable weather measuring equipment. The sparseness of meteorological data only fuels the ongoing battle of what element caused the initial and primary data: the wind or the water.

The Saffir-Simpson Scale was developed in the 1960’s when meteorological radars still depicted large black blobs on the radar screen instead of the color-diversified images from NEXRAD. In the 1960’s we had limited knowledge of hurricane dynamics and today we have the technology to measure a variety of storm elements.

Some scientists say it makes little sense to hew to an older warning scale that doesn't take into account the wealth of hurricane data collected.

Among them is Mark Powell, an atmospheric scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research division. Powell has developed a system of measuring a storm's potential destructiveness that he calls integrated kinetic energy. The technique essentially sums the strength of a storm's winds and the size of the wind field. (Houston Chronicle, November 29, 2008).

During my years as a meteorologist, I was taught that research results arrived only after years of analysis and collected data, yet there is no archive of what data was used to generate the Saffir-Simpson categories. What was the thinking of the authors of the scale when they determined the different categories and the expected levels of damage? Why aren’t these inconsistencies corrected by the development of a more factual scale?

The people who work at the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service are over-worked and under-funded, yet the American public expects miracles each and every time a hurricane closes in on the United States. When a hurricane warning is issued, the public becomes convinced that the level of damage associated with the current hurricane is what can be expected. This just isn’t true!

It is a shame that the United States doesn’t have a better system of collecting meteorological data to provide better resolution for numerical models in forecasting hurricanes. It’s a shame that the Saffir-Simpson Scale is used blindly by various agencies to rationalize their decisions in wake of a hurricane.

The overblown damage expectations and associated wind speeds in the Saffir-Simpson Scale are extravagant. When Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas it was classified as a Category 2 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 110 miles per hour. I can not believe that the hurricane and associated properties understood what was expected of them. Do you think any structure realizes that one more mile per hour of speed would be a Category 3 hurricane and then it was permissible to show signs of minor damage?

We must wake up to the fact that many of our popular meteorological beliefs have no substance or real support. One of favorites is the “belief” that storm surges cause the most damage and deaths in a hurricane. Where is this supported by real numbers? Does any agency (FEMA, NWS, Census Bureau) actually count the number of deaths from wind versus surge? The answer is NO!

Many of our “beliefs” are carryovers from the past when all the deaths were lumped into the category of “storm surge related”. I will back off from my rants if any agency can provide me with a list of hurricane related deaths (along any coastline) that is categorized for wind-related versus surge-related deaths.

In summary, our entire system of categorizing hurricanes with the Saffir-Simpson Scale is misleading and inaccurate. I am sure that a better system for categorizing hurricanes can be developed, but can this effort withstand the politics of such a venture? You can be sure that before another system replaces the Saffir-Simpson Scale, the political battles within and outside the meteorological community will add years before the public has a new method to confront the dangers of hurricane landfalls.

--Rocco Calaci