A Reanalysis of the 1921–30 Atlantic Hurricane Database*

Abstract

A reanalysis of the Atlantic basin tropical storm and hurricane database (''best track'') for the period from 1921 to 1930 has been completed. This reassessment of the main archive for tropical cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico was necessary to correct systematic biases and random errors in the data as well as to search for previously unrecognized systems. The methodology for the reanalysis process for revising the track and intensity of tropical cyclone data has been detailed in a previous paper on the reanalysis. The 1921-30 dataset now includes several new tropical cyclones, excludes one system previously considered a tropical storm, makes generally large alterations in the intensity estimates of most tropical cyclones (both toward stronger and weaker intensities), and typically adjusts existing tracks with minor corrections. Average uncertainty in intensity and track values is estimated for both open-ocean conditions as well as landfalling systems. Highlights are given for changes to the more significant hurricanes to impact the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean for this decade.

Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge Risk

“…Colbert and Soden [8] and [65], respectively, showed ENSO and the Atlantic Meridional Mode impact cyclone track and intensity, largely explaining the temporal clustering of land-falling hurricanes in the US along the northeast Atlantic coast in the 1950s, along the mid-Atlantic coast in the 1990s, and along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast in the 2000s. As a simple example of the magnitude of this influence on extreme central pressures in the northern Gulf of Mexico, a sample of 5-year intervals from 1943 to 2012 HURDAT [49,51,52] was partitioned into two samples, one in which four or more storms originated or passed into an area anywhere north of 28°latitude during a 5-year interval and one in which less than this number occurred. The estimated 100-year central pressure was 924 mb for the case with lower storm numbers and 890 mb for the case of higher storm numbers.…”

Numerical computation of hurricane effects on historic coastal hydrology in Southern Florida

“…The datum was not specifically defined, so it is assumed to be approximately defined relative to sea level at the time of the storm. These storm surge data were incorporated into the simulated tidal level with linear rises and falls occurring over a 6-h period consistent with the standard time step of weather prediction models (Landsea et al 2012). …”

“…A historic reconstruction for the Great Miami Hurricane (Landsea et al 2012) was considered, but not used, as only the wind at the location of the hurricane's eye is reported every 6 h. Instead, an approximation was developed for a modern-era hurricane utilizing data from the 2005 Hurricane Wilma H*Wind Gridded Surface Wind Analysis (Powell et al 1998), which is a data compilation based primarily on actual observations at sea, on land, from satellites, and from Hurricane Hunter aircraft. Past numerical simulations of storm surge have used wind fields created on the basis of fitting analytical cyclone models (Holland, 1980) or on surface wind field observations from H*Wind analyses of real storms (Zhang et al 2008, Zhang et al 2012.…”

Hurricane wind hazard assessment for a rapidly warming climate scenario

“…The study presented herein makes use of all available historical hurricane data to extend the current scenario to the year 2012. In addition, the most current historical hurricane database (HURDAT, 2013) incorporates findings of several re-analysis projects (Landsea et al, 2004a(Landsea et al, , 2004b(Landsea et al, , 2008(Landsea et al, , 2012Hagen et al, 2012) to correct errors and biases that have previously appeared in the historical data. While storm surge and flooding due to hurricanes also cause damage, only the direct hurricane wind hazard (maximum wind speed and storm size) is considered herein.…”