Worldwide Controversy About Hurricane Earl
UPDATE: Blog reader Bryan F. points out that the Canadian Hurricane Centre (CHC) website states that it was created due to "confusion" about statements from the U.S. Hurricane Center during Hurricane Gloria in 1985, so there is a history of disagreement there.
A few interesting tidbits on Hurricane Earl before I retire from coverage of the storm.
1. The Canadian government (Environment Canada) disagrees with the U.S. government (National Hurricane Center) on Earl's classification when he hit Nova Scotia. They claim he was a Category 1 Hurricane, while the NHC says he was a Tropical Storm at landfall.
Our Canadian Blogger Brett Anderson has more details. Their statement said winds were measured gusting to 84 mph (gusts don't count of course when determining Hurricane categories) and Brett notes that the storm had a 960 mb pressure, which would be Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (which is no longer used in the U.S. in favor of a wind-only classification).
2. NASA has a page with many interesting images that their satellites (and drone planes!) snapped during Hurricane Earl, including the cross-section above.
3. Earl did a lot of damage in Canada, and this was under-reported by U.S. media. The storm knocked out power to over 200,000 and no doubt downed thousands of trees there.
4. Earl displaced many birds by trapping them within the eye or veering them off course. Some are searching for new homes today but others will perish in unfamiliar surroundings. This is not unusual for a hurricane, but is something the media isn't covering other than this article from the Discovery Channel.
5. If you look at this satellite animation, the remnants of Earl appear to have split in two with the circulation moving northward into northern Canada and dissipating, while some of its clouds streamed northeastward. One wonders if leftover energy from the storm contributed to the 108 mph wind gust today at Aviemore, Scotland, but a meteorological source in the U.K. says the current storm is just a normal low pressure system.
