Hurricane Danny vs. Hurricane Humberto

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By Jene' Young Meteorologist

M50o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr Hurricane Danny vs. Hurricane Humberto

Published: Wed, May 21, 2008 - 5:00 pm
Last Updated: Monday, July 21, 2008 - 6:34 pm

Jene' Young

Hurricane Danny and Hurricane Humberto -- two storms -- ten years apart -- both fooled the experts!
Dr. Keith Blackwell says when it comes to forecasting, "In the middle of the night, that's when storms pull their bag of tricks out and start doing things that people don't expect."
Blackwell has studied Hurricane Danny for years.
"Originally the storm was forecast to go to Destin Florida that Friday evening, the 18th of July 1997. The Alabama Deep Sea Rodeo was that weekend, and you had a whole bunch of fishermen wanting to get on Dauphin Island."

Hurricane Danny decided to stay in mobile bay for two days.
“Even though it was surrounded by land, the storm's center contracted down to such a small size. As a matter of fact the eye was only three miles wide in Mobile Bay off of Mullet Point in Baldwin County.” The heavy rain and high winds shifted to one side of the storm.
“The west side of Danny, right down through the Ship Channel in Mobile Bay, and portions of southeast Mobile County, Dauphin Island, and the Fort Morgan Peninsula were in a biblical rain storm!”

Blackwell says Danny likely produced 60 inches of rain in the bay!
"Now if you can imagine that amount of water. That's almost our yearly rainfall for Mobile."
Why would Danny strengthen in the Bay with the storm surrounded by land on three sides?
"One thing I always remembered as a kid, the Bay water was always really warm all the time, but you go down the Gulf and the water was colder. When I started thinking about Danny's situation, I said you know, I bet it's the water temperature."
During a typical July, the Corp of Engineers found that the average water temperature in the southern part of the Bay sometimes never fell below 90 degrees!
"It just goes to show you that even though a storm is moving onto the coast, for instance, if it gets into a shallow, hot estuary like Mobile Bay, and it's a relatively small storm like Danny was, it might just go ahead and strengthen. If this was a major hurricane, very small in size and got into Mobile Bay, imagine the consequences. Having a major hurricane battering the bay for a full day, you know with the eyewall, with major hurricane force winds, with category three of greater, it would be catastrophic!”

Fast forward to 2007, Hurricane Humberto surprised neighbors along the Texas coast.
"There weren't even hurricane warnings out on the Texas Coast and this storm went inland as a hurricane. I mean, it organized so fast right off the beach, and that's a real danger with storms. They appear to be doing one thing early on, and you go to sleep for instance, and you say gee, this thing isn't going to be much. Before you knew it, it was a hurricane making landfall.
Humberto intensified into a hurricane faster than any previous storm! The storm grew from just an area of disorganized thunderstorms in the Gulf, to a strong category one hurricane in under 20 hours. If you think you have an idea what a storm is doing and where it’s going, think again! There are always surprises in hurricane forecasting.

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