In Hurricane Dorian's track, echoes of Andrew in 1992
Should Hurricane Dorian come ashore on Florida's Atlantic coast as a Category 4 storm, it will be the strongest hurricane to hit the state's eastern coast in nearly 30 years.
Since the late 1800s, only eight Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall on Florida's east coast. With Hurricane Dorian a Category 4 storm, it may become the ninth. The last hurricane of this magnitude to hit Florida was Hurricane Andrew, which hit 27 years prior in 1992.
As of Friday evening, Hurricane Dorian was trekking through the Atlantic Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane as AccuWeather meteorologists had predicted. Dorian is also expected to be a 4 on the AccuWeather RealImpact Scale and forecast to track over or close to the eastern coast of Florida.
Hurricane Andrew had strengthened from just reaching hurricane force to a Category 4 storm in about a day, from Aug. 22 to Aug. 23, in 1992 as it closed the gap between Bermuda and Puerto Rico to the Bahamas. After weakening a bit over the islands, it gathered strength once more before blasting across Florida. Hurricane Andrew grew into a Category 5 hurricane in about 36 hours, according to NOAA.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew slammed the eastern coast of Florida as a Category 5 hurricane. The image above shows its track throughout its lifespan.
Andrew made landfall early on the morning of August 24, 1992, coming ashore in Homestead, Florida, with 165-mph sustained winds. The storm left a trail of destruction that left 65 dead and caused an estimated total of $26.5 billion in damages, roughly the equivalent of $48 billion in 2019 dollars.
Kottlowski said there is a good chance that Hurricane Dorian will undergo an eye wall replacement cycle. This process usually happens when storms reach the status of a major hurricane, or Category 3 or higher.
This Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019 image provided by NASA shows a view of Hurricane Dorian from the International Space Station as it churned over the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico. Leaving mercifully little damage in its wake in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Hurricane Dorian swirled toward the U.S., with forecasters warning it will draw energy from the warm, open waters as it closes in. (NASA via AP)
"There will be a second eye wall that will develop almost concentric around the smaller one," Kottlowski said. "If a secondary eye wall forms, the inner eye wall tends to fall apart because the bigger one, or the one that's a little bit wider, will overtake it."
As a result, the surface pressure rises, according to Kottlowski, and can cause the hurricane to lose strength and possibly go down a category or two. Kottlowski warns that while it may go down as a category, "everything else does not stop."
This water tower, shown Aug. 25, 1992, a landmark at Florida City, Fla., still stands over the ruins of the Florida coastal community that was hit by the force of Hurricane Andrew. The storm damage to the South Florida area was estimated at $15 billion, leaving about 50,000 homeless. (AP Photo/Ray Fairall)
"When a storm goes down a notch like a category, it doesn't mean much as far as the impacts," Kottlowski said.
Those impacts can include flooding rainfall, tornadoes and storm surge. Hurricane Dorian could produce up to 10 feet of storm surge, according to Kottlowski, compared to the 17 feet of storm surge that Hurricane Andrew stirred up.
Once the eye wall replacement cycle is complete, Dorian could begin to grow stronger once again, and if it hits the east coast of the Sunshine State at Category 4 strength, it will join a short list of storms to do so going back more than a century.
Seven Category 4-5 hurricanes that hit the eastern coast of Florida precede Hurricane Andrew over a course of nearly 150 years.
"Since the late 1800s, we've only seen a total of eight Category 4 or Category 5 hurricanes hit the east coast of Florida, so it doesn't happen very often," Kottlowski said. "One of the reasons why it doesn't happen very often is because most hurricanes, when they approach Florida, tend to re-curve out to sea parallel to the coast."
When a hurricane does hit Florida from the east, however, it travels over warm water from the Gulf Stream that provides fuel for the storm right before landfall.
Hurricane King, the 1949 Florida Hurricane and the 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane had previously been listed as Category 3 hurricanes, only to be upgraded after a NOAA re-analysis in 2004.
The first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall on the eastern Florida coast was the Great Miami Hurricane in 1926, which "produced the highest sustained winds ever recorded in the United states at the time," according to NOAA, reaching up to 150 mph at landfall.
The Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928 was the fourth strongest hurricane of record to hit the United States, according to NOAA. Seven years later, the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 became the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States with a pressure of 26.35 inches measured at Long Key, Florida.
Editor's note: A previous graphic in this story had the incorrect year for the Fort Lauderdale Hurricane. That storm made landfall in 1947, not 1992. This story has been updated.
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