List of Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes
This list of the Atlantic Category 5 hurricanes called hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean all who have since systematic records reached an intensity within category 5 of the Saffir -Simpson Hurricane Scale. A Category 5 hurricane - the highest level of this scale - caused the most serious damage. In the statistical average such a storm occurs once in three years. In just four hurricane seasons - 1960, 1961, 2005 and 2007 - more than one such storm was recorded. Only 2005 made more than two hurricanes of this strength, and in 2007 reached more than a Category 5 hurricane in strength over this country.
Statistics
A hurricane that is classified in category 5, achieved sustained wind speeds of more than 135 knots (250 km / h). The term sustained wind speed refers to the responsibility of the National Hurricane Center, the average wind speed measured ten feet above the ground within the time span of one minute. In a hurricane gusts reached in the short term up to 50 percent higher wind speeds. Because a hurricane is usually a moving system, the wind field is asymmetric; the strongest winds occur in the northern hemisphere in the pulling direction right from the center. The wind speeds referred to in storm warnings are facing the right side.
Between 1924 and 2007, 32 hurricanes were observed that reached Category 5 strength. Prior to 1924, there are officially no hurricanes so classified. Although one can assume that there was open water earlier hurricanes such intensity, such values have not been measured. The anemometer, the wind speeds are measured, was invented in 1846. However, in severe storms, these instruments were often blown away, so that the top speed could not be recorded. For example, when the Great Hurricane 1879 Beaufort North Carolina met, the anemometer was worn away as it indicated just 220 km per hour.
By meteorologists are revalued past readings that can cause hurricanes on or stepped, which are currently classified as hurricanes of category 4 or 5. For example, the Santa Ana hurricane is a possible candidate of a hurricane has the strongest category achieved. In addition, severe hurricane can be identified when paläotempestologische investigation by the comparison of sediments due to current and past hurricane events. In this way, we know that in the period before 1500 a much stronger hurricane when Hurricane Hattie (category 5) has hit the area now Belize.
Officially, the decade with the most hurricanes in category 5, the decade between 2000 and 2010, previously reached eight hurricanes of this strength: Isabel (2003), Ivan (2004), Emily (2005), Katrina (2005), Rita ( 2005), Wilma (2005), Dean (2007 ) and Felix (2007). The second highest number of Category 5 hurricanes occurred with six events in the 1960s ( Ethel, Donna, Carla, Hattie, Beulah and Camille ).
List in chronological order
The following table lists all the hurricanes that have reached the Category 5, in chronological order.
Before the advent of reliable geostationary weather satellites in 1966, the number of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean has been underestimated. So it is quite possible that there was another category -5 hurricanes, as mentioned here - they have not been observed.
The wind speed specified are rounded based on the measurements in units of five nodes. Many of the older measurements are not reliable because the measurement devices often destroyed by the conditions during a Category 5 hurricane or damaged.
Sorting by date in the season
Category 5 hurricanes have been observed to date in each month between July and October. The earliest formation of a Category 5 hurricane was the emergence of Hurricane Emily and the latest was Hurricane Hattie. The Hurricanes Emily, Allen, Gilbert and Wilma were the hurricanes with the greatest intensity in the respective month.
Six hurricanes in the Atlantic basin - Allen, Andrew, Isabel, Ivan, Dean and Felix - reached the highest category more than once, that is, they weakened after reaching Category 5 in category 4 declined and reached after a further intensification again the category 5 of these six managed the hurricanes Allen, Isabel and Ivan times each in the highest level of the Saffir -Simpson Hurricane Scale, Andrew, Dean and Felix, this was achieved twice. Hurricane Allen holds the record for the longest time in the Category 5 overall, while the Hurricanes Ivan Dog and hold the record for the longest continuous time in the category 5.
Preparation for the lowest air pressure
The minimum air pressure of the chronologically younger storm events was measured by remote reconnaissance aircraft probe or determined on the basis of satellite imagery using the Dvorak technique. For earlier storms, the measurements are often incomplete. They come exclusively from measurements passing vessels, weather stations on land or aircraft. These methods can not provide constant measurement results. Often such measurements derived from peripheral areas of a hurricane. So in some cases the specified known lowest air pressure of a system is unrealistically high for a Category 5 hurricane
Pressure measurements are also not necessarily the wind measurements. The wind speed of a storm depends on the size of a hurricane, as well as how quickly if the pressure falls at the approach of the center. As a result, creates a hurricane in an environment with higher air pressure higher wind speeds than a hurricane which moves within an environment with lower air pressure, even when the central air pressure is the same.
The most intense hurricane, which did not reach the Category 5 Hurricane Opal was a minimum air pressure of 916 hPa ( mbar). He had thus a lower air pressure than some Category 5 hurricanes, such as Hurricane Andrew.
Climatology
Of the 32 hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, which reached Category 5, accounting for one in July, seven in August, twenty to September and four in October. During the months of June and November, and the months outside of the official hurricane season so far no hurricanes were observed in this strength.
The Category 5 hurricanes in July and August reached their high intensities both in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. These sea areas are particularly suitable for cyclone development during these months.
Most Category 5 hurricanes have been recorded in the month of September. This accumulation coincides with the climatological peak of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean together in early September. This Category 5 hurricanes reach this intensity both in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean as well as on the open Atlantic Ocean. Many of these correspond to the Cape Verde type hurricanes that build their strength by the vastness of the open sea or there are so-called " bahama buster " which intensify over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
All four Category 5 hurricanes in October reached this intensity in the western Caribbean, where the focus of activity is towards the end of the Atlantic hurricane season. This is related to the climatology of the region, because here sometimes a anticyclone is at this point in the level, which favors the rapid intensification of a system in combination with the warm water temperatures.
Formation, with the intensity at landfall
With the exception of hurricanes Dog, Easy and Cleo all Atlantic Category 5 Hurricanes arrived somewhere on the mainland. Most of them in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, where, in contrast to the eastern Pacific Ocean, the usual weather the storms not expel from the mainland. Thirteen of these storms crossed the coastline, as they were classified in the highest category.
Many of these systems have weakened shortly before the transition to land. This may be caused by the dry air near land, flatter or cooler water as well as by the interactions across the country.
The Atlantic Hurricane Season 2007 is the only known season in which the Atlantic coastline, the five crossed more than a hurricane when Hurricane category.
The listing mentions the hurricanes in chronological order and gives the States or in the United States, the Federal States, where the storm center crossed the coast line. Because the Hurricanes Dog, Easy and Cleo came directly over land, they are not included in this list.