{"id":21710,"date":"2015-10-23T19:59:45","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/?p=21710"},"modified":"2015-10-23T19:59:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:59:45","slug":"a-word-of-caution-about-hurricane-patricia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/23\/a-word-of-caution-about-hurricane-patricia\/","title":{"rendered":"A word of caution about Hurricane Patricia"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN is calling Hurricane Patricia “The Most Dangerous Hurricane in History.” Another news outlet showed a picture of the hurricane and pointed out “The Enormous Size of Hurricane Patricia.”<\/p>\n

Both of these are wrong. Size matters with hurricanes. A category 5 hurricane that is twice as large as another category 5 hurricane is “more dangerous” all else being equal, and by “all else” I mean things like exactly where it hits, how fast it is moving, exactly how strong it is (category 5 includes a very wide range of wind speeds because it is the highest category). Hurricane Patricia is not huge.<\/p>\n

Patricia is very dangerous, has a very low pressure center and very strong winds, both being at or near record breaking levels. But the hurricane is small. Here’s a VERY rough size comparison between two of the well known and very large hurricanes that I just slapped together:<\/p>\n

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The larger hurricanes will cover more area with their dangerous winds, may have a more extensive storm tide, and will very likely bring a lot more rain inland. Patricia will do very bad things where it makes landfall, which is actually happening as I write this, but that area will be smaller than a Katrina like hurricane. And it will bring a fair amount of water inland, but not nearly as much as a monster like Haiyan would have.<\/p>\n

So yes, take Patricia seriously. But I expect to see a lot of yammering after the fact, from certain factions, about how everyone was being very alarmist about Patricia when in the end it was not a Katrina.<\/p>\n

So let it be understood. Patricia is no Katrina. But it is impressive in its own way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN is calling Hurricane Patricia “The Most Dangerous Hurricane in History.” Another news outlet showed a picture of the hurricane and pointed out “The Enormous Size of Hurricane Patricia.” Both of these are wrong. Size matters with hurricanes. A category 5 hurricane that is twice as large as another category 5 hurricane is “more dangerous” … Continue reading A word of caution about Hurricane Patricia<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2860,1190,2859,920,1192,2861,2862],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-5Ea","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}