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  • Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

    Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm
    03 Sep 2007 00:06:22 GMT
    <!-- 03 Sep 2007 00:06:22 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove--> Source: Reuters

    <!-- AN5.0 article title end --><!-- AN5.0 article header --> <!-- noPrint -->
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    <!-- AN5.0 article header end --> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.alertnet.org/bin/js/article.js"></script> <input value="13" name="CurrentSize" id="CurrentSize" type="hidden"> WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Hurricane Felix strengthened into a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm on Sunday as it approached Central America on a path toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, U.S. forecasters said. Felix, which intensified at alarming speed on Sunday as it passed north of Aruba, had top sustained winds of 165 mph (270 kph) by 8 p.m. EDT (2400 GMT), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
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    "In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man (or woman https://flutrackers.com/forum/core/i...ilies/wink.png), and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark TwainReason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. -Thomas Paine

  • #2
    Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

    Thanks Niko.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

      <table style="margin-bottom: 3px; margin-top: 3px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="80&#37;"> <tbody><tr valign="bottom"> <td>

      </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
      <hr align="left" size="1"> September 5, 2007
      <nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> Hurricane Felix Strikes Central America </nyt_headline>

      <nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> </nyt_byline>By MARC LACEY
      <nyt_text> </nyt_text> TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Sept. 4 — Hurricane Felix, at powerful Category 5 strength, struck the Caribbean coast of Central America early today, beginning a slow and potentially deadly march across Honduras, where residents braced not just for 160-mile-an-hour winds and heavy rains but the mudslides and flooding that were expected to follow.

      The most vulnerable people in the hurricane’s path, and the first to face its wrath, were the Miskito Indians living in wooden homes along the remote Nicaraguan-Honduran border.

      “I’m asking the people — no, I’m ordering them — to leave their wood homes and head to shelters,” Marco Burgos, national commissioner of the Honduran emergency response center, urged coastal residents over the radio. “Not one wooden house is going to survive such a hit.”

      Inside the country’s bustling emergency operations center, here in the Honduran capital, soldiers in camouflage mixed with aid workers and government officials, all of whom were working to head off the devastation that struck the region in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch caused an estimated 11,000 deaths.

      Mitch, also a Category 5 storm, lingered for a week over Central America, ripping off roofs, devastating bridges and causing such flooding that mountainsides collapsed, burying whole villages.

      That was the fear today as Felix struck Nicaragua and began a path that is expected to take it Honduras, into southern Belize and then across northern Guatemala and southern Mexico.

      “We’re much more prepared now than we were then,” Mr. Burgos, the emergency official, said in an interview. “We learned a lot from Mitch.”
      He said the evacuations that were taking place along the coast, the red alerts that were being issued on local media and the local disaster committees that have been activated to mobilize residents are all outgrowths of the previous storm. President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, wearing a leather jacket, sat at a computer screen late Monday night, monitoring the storm’s trajectory and projecting to the country his government’s readiness.

      But no matter the preparations, the country remains poor and vulnerable. “ Most of our municipalities have no firefighters, no ambulances,” Mr. Burgos said. “The people have to save themselves.”
      <nyt_update_bottom> </nyt_update_bottom>


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      Last edited by Sally Furniss; September 5, 2007, 02:10 AM. Reason: Formatting problem
      "In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man (or woman https://flutrackers.com/forum/core/i...ilies/wink.png), and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark TwainReason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. -Thomas Paine

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

        By Ivan Castro

        MANAGUA, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua and Honduras on Tuesday as a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm, lashing remote coastal villages with violent winds and torrential rains.

        Felix made landfall at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) north of the small port of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, and was moving westward at 16 mph (26 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

        Thousands of people hunkered in storm shelters early as Felix, upgraded to an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm, approached the coast provoking fears of a repeat of Hurricane Mitch, which killed some 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.

        "There could be serious damage and material, like human, losses, if people do not take precautionary measures," Honduran President Manuel Zelaya warned.

        The area where Felix hit is sparsely populated and dotted with lagoons and marshes but the storm threatened many poor Honduran and Guatemalan villages further inland that are perched on hillsides and vulnerable to mudslides.

        Up to 40,000 Hondurans were evacuated to shelters, but some 15,000 people were unable to find transportation and were forced to ride out the storm in their homes.

        "They couldn't be evacuated because there is no fuel to take them to safe areas," said Carolina Echeverria, a deputy from Cabo Gracias a Dios on the border with Nicaragua, where Felix landed.

        It was too early to predict damage to the region's vital coffee crops. The storm is due to drive through Honduras into Guatemala and then Chiapas in southern Mexico.

        Hundreds of tourists were flown to the Honduran mainland from beach and diving resorts on the Bay Islands, and police reported long lines at supermarkets and gas stations in coastal cities as residents stocked up on food, water and fuel.

        A storm surge of up to 18 feet (5.5 m) was expected.

        Emergency workers sailed thousands of Miskito Indians out of sparsely populated, coastal areas near the border, dotted with lagoons and crocodile-infested rivers. The turtle-fishing Miskitos formed a British protectorate until the 19th century. Some 35,000 live in Honduras, and over 100,000 in Nicaragua.

        SECOND HUGE STORM

        Felix is the second hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, and the second Category 5 storm after Hurricane Dean, which killed 27 people in the Caribbean and Mexico in August.

        "We are faced with a very serious threat to lives and property. The most important thing is that people pay heed to the call for evacuation so that we don't have to count bodies later," said Honduran civil protection head Marco Burgos.

        The World Food Program said it had food stocks in the region that could feed 600,000 people for a month.


        A Category 5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale is capable of catastrophic damage and heavy flooding. Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history, was a Category 3 when it made landfall near New Orleans in 2005.

        Category 5 hurricanes are rare, but there were four in 2005. Others this year could bolster claims that global warming is fueling stronger tropical cyclones.

        London coffee futures were broadly higher on Tuesday, in speculative buying with concerns on the impact of Hurricane Felix seen as a factor, dealers said.

        In Nicaragua, farmers feared Felix could cause a surge in "black beans," which render coffee unexportable and leech nutrients from the soil, as Mitch did. "This brings back very difficult memories," said Matagalpa grower Julio Solorzano.

        It looked unlikely to re-emerge over the Bay of Campeche, home of Mexico's major offshore oil fields, and strengthen again in the Gulf of Mexico was unclear.

        (Additional reporting by Brian Harris and Ivan Castro in Managua and Michael Christie in Miami)
        "In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man (or woman https://flutrackers.com/forum/core/i...ilies/wink.png), and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark TwainReason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. -Thomas Paine

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

          Fortunately Felix has an unusually narrow wind cone which should limit the area of damage. Henrietta is about to wander up Baja California (Category 1).

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

            can hurricanes cross from Atlantic to Pacific ?

            Attached Files
            I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
            my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

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            • #7
              Re: Hurricane Felix strengthens into Category 5 storm

              gsgs:

              Yes, once a storm has formed (which requires several factors including high surface temp, depth of warm surface waters, pre existing nascent circulation, coriorlis effect, not too much wind sheer, water vapour gradients etc.) it can be maintained if it can draw sufficient energy from the surface it is traveling over. If it has enough energy in the system (I think Felix is too small) it can traverse land masses and will pick up power again when it reaches suitable water again. The Pacific coastal waters off Mexico are certainly suitable at the moment as this area has been building Henrietta, and another unnamed system that tracked west last week. Storms have transited from Atlantic to Pacific and vice-versa (although I have never heard of one that crossed over and back - unlikely as it would require an atypical reversal of direction)

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