Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Weather columnist Kevin Myatt: Ghost of a hurricane past more scary than present hurricane
Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.
kevin.myatt
@roanoke.com
981-3341
Weather with Kevin Myatt
Recent columns
- Winter trying again to show up with snow
- We got graupel, but not on official record
- Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
- Column archive
Read the Weather Journal blog
- Many looking past mild, quiet week toward possibly wild weekend
- Sprinkles or flurries possible Tuesday, but maybe something bigger for the weekend?
- For now, it looks like a quiet, mostly mild week ahead for SW Virginia
- Weather Journal blog
#swvawx on Twitter
@KevinMyattWx
The Galveston, Texas, hurricane of 2008, otherwise known as Ike, invokes comparisons to the infamous Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
The 1900 storm was stronger -- a Category 4 (131-150 mph winds), compared to Ike's Category 2 strength (110 mph winds at landfall) -- and killed far more people. Conservative estimates place the 1900 death toll at 6,000 at Galveston alone; Ike's toll, including deaths far inland, on Tuesday stood at 47.
The Houston-Galveston area of Texas is much more populated and developed in 2008, so the overall amount of damage is likely to be far greater with Ike than with the 1900 storm. The 1900 damage toll has been estimated at $700 million in modern dollars, adjusted for inflation; Ike's toll will be many billions.
One interesting parallel between the two storms is how far inland the winds carried.
Ike's remnants brought tropical storm-strength winds (39-73 mph) to much of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana, killing people in each of those states. The 1900 storm, becoming an extratropical low, brought hurricane-force winds to Chicago and tropical storm-force winds to New York City. Sometimes a hurricane can be a problem far from where it comes ashore.
