Is my hurricane destructive potential index a useful supplement to Saffir–Simpson?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Index works like this:

P = Destructive Potential.

Vmax is maximum sustained winds in Knots.

Radius is radius of 64knots winds (hurricane force).

10^9 is a unitary metric used to simplify numbers, because the biggest hurricanes produce incredibly large numbers on this scale.

So here's the index:

P = (Vmax^3 * Radius ^2) / 10^9

This can be calculated ahead of time as a relative warning tool to compare past storms on this same scale with the new storm and it can be recalculated after the fact for future reference.

Some past storms and how they compare to one another:

Andrew (Florida): (145kts^3 * 25nm ^2) / 10^9 = 1.9 Units of Destruction. 26.7 billion real dollars that year.

Andrew (Louisiana): (105kts^3 * 50nm^2) / 10^9 = 2.89 Units of Destruction (mostly uninsured).

Katrina (Louisiana): (125kts^3 * 110nm^2) / 10^9 = 23.6 Units of Destruction, or 12.4 times as much damage as Andrew. This falls in the middle of the professional Meteorologists estimates of Katrina's real insured and uninsured losses, at about 250 billion dollars. (upper estimate is 300 billion dollars).

Sandy (Jersey): (80kts^3 * 150nm^2) / 10^9 = 11.5 Units of Destruction, or about half that of Katrina in Louisiana. This is primarily due to Sandy's enormous size. Many people don't realize Sandy was only a Category 1 hurricane at landfall by the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Labor Day 1935: (Unknown intensity, but NHC estimates it as 185mph sustained or 160kts)

P = (160kts ^3 * 20nm^2) / 10^9 = 1.64 units of destruction. This is because of the storms abnormally small size in spite of being insanely intense in wind speed.

Explanation:

Wind speed is CUBED while some other scales use the SQUARE of wind speed. Why do I cube wind speed? Because in Wind Turbines the POWER of wind is proportioned to the Cube of the Wind Speed. This step prevents size of storms from totally dominating wind speed on destruction, since we know winds and surge can be locally catastrophic even for small storms.

[msc545]

I imagine you're going to get some really helpful answers since everybody knows exactly what this shit is, since you've explained it so clearly.

Would you like me to start asking you about brain anatomy or psychopathology using enough technical terminology that you don't have the faintest fucking idea what I'm talking about - and then add insult to injury by failing to explain anything, just so I can feel superior to you?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Hey genius, you're only allowed 2000 characters in a question post. I ran out of space and had to delete an entire paragraph.

Anyway, there's a way to convert "destructive potential" to real dollars in an average landfall location and adjust for average annual inflation, so that all storms are rated on an up-to-date dollar scale. I find this system predicts real dollar losses better than the Saffir-Simpson scale alone.

I'm not allowed to make "MyTakes" anymore, because I don't brown-nose the owners enough.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

I was going to explain that you can make a Unitary Metric from a "Normal Sized Cat 1 hurricane," which is 25nm radius at 65knots Vmax. so the unitary metric is this:

P = 65^3 * 25nm^2 = 171640625 Units of Destruction.

If you divide this into Katrina's Destructive Potential, you find Katrina is 137 times more destructive than a "normal category 1 hurricane".

A normal category 1 hurricane does about 3 billion dollars damage on landfall in a typical location.

Some estimates have Katrina as high as 300 billion in 2005 currency USA Dollar in other words. The formula suggests Katrina might have done 400 billion in damage, but again most of Katrina's damage was done to folks who did not have flood insurance, so it is NOT counted under 'insured losses'.

Ths formula still under-estimates damage by stalled or near-stalled systems, because it doesn't take stalling into consideration. for that reason, It predicts hurricane Harvey is about 8 times as damaging as a Cat 1. This is an under-estimate, because Harvey really did more like 200 billiion in damage due to prolonged near-stall conditions and passing over the same areas multiple times.

However, we can predict stalls most of the time, so that can be factored in as well. For every DAY of stall or near-stall conditions, I always assume 12 inches of rainfall. Harvey was in "near stall" conditions for about 4 or 5 days, so that produces 60 inches of rainfall near Houston, which actually saw 65 inches of rain for local maximum.

[Anonymous]

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