UPDATE:The NHC [JessePedia] is quoted in an AP Article saying "No tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall." A radar loop of the landfall is available for download* here.

PHOTO CAPTION: Jessalyn Frazier, 5, ventures toward the water in her front yard as her mother Jessica Frazier checks on school closures after rains from Hurricane Humberto inundated the area Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007 in Winnie, Texas. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

ORIGINAL POST:

I am very surprised to find out this morning that Tropical Storm Humberto was upgraded to a Hurricane with winds estimated at 85 mph* early this morning. Bloomberg says that most of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas lost power, including a major oil refinery. MyFoxHouston has some impressive pictures of damage to trees and buildings, and says that one person was killed when a tree fell on their carport. The Beaumont Enterprise also has some photos.

I was surprised partially because I wasn't paying enough attention yesterday evening. Others here, such as AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO), anticipated this increase in strength. Well, that's why I sit here in New Media and am not responsible for warning clients! Here's the point of landfall from our Google Hurricane Tracker (PREMIUM | PRO):

HUMBERTO MAKES LANDFALL

When I first came into work this morning, I felt bad, like I let my blog readers down... maybe if I had been paying more attention yesterday, I wouldn't have downplayed Humberto's winds like I did. The truth is, my daughter's first soccer game was last night, so I was away from the computer and didn't even check the observations or AccuWeather.com's news stories when I got home.

But in looking at the data, the strengthening of the storm was truly quick and happened overnight... a nightmare for weather forecasters. The most impressive buoy observations came from Buoy #42043, #42035, and #SRST2, all of which showed nothing significant until after 8 PM last night (indicated as the orange color on the graphs below). Other stations which reported significant winds (see buoy archive) showed nothing significant at the time either. Here are graphs of wind (in knots) and pressure from the most impressive buoys:

I wouldn't even have believed the obs from 42043, shown above, if not for 42035 and SRST2. I mean look at that graph, the wind gust is so sudden it looks like anomalous data (and I'm still a little suspicious of the gust at 82 when the sustained was only 26 mph, usually gusts are not more than 1.5 times sustained).

Here's a map showing the locations from which the graphs above were observed (green rectangles), buoys which were out of service (red - a story for another time), and buoys which didn't show impressive obs (white).

The official station at Beaumont, Texas gusted to an incredible 84 mph; RAWS weather station on the Louisiana coast gusted to 75 mph; a 74 mph gust was also reported at Odom Academy by KFDM-TV.

*85 mph was the estimated sustained wind speed by the NHC, based on data from a recon airplane. As I've said before, these types of winds are rarely documented, and in the end there were no hurricane-force sustained winds reported with this storm that I am aware of. Here's a summary of what wind gusts were measured in the observations mentioned above:

Beaumont KBPT: 84 mph
Buoy 42043: 82 mph
Sabine Pass, TX SRST2: 76 mph
McFadden, TX FADT2: 75 mph
Odom Academy, TX: 74 mph
Buoy 42035: 69 mph

A report of 85 mph from "Sabine, Texas" was reported in our Breaking Weather News Page (PREMIUM | PRO) but I was unable to confirm this reading.

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