It's Raining Fish and Spiders (14 page)

It's St. Elmo's fire!

St. Elmo's fire forms on aircraft wing tips, antennae, the tail, nose, and propeller blades. It has also been seen atop ship masts, tips of trees, tops of power poles, grass blades, and has even been seen glowing on the tips of the horns of cattle. It's rare and only happens when the atmosphere is superelectrically charged, as in a storm like Mitch. It's heatless and nonconsuming, and can last for minutes. It's beautiful, but scary.

Ancient Mediterranean sailors believed Elmo to be their patron saint. Many people believe that the appearance of St. Elmo's fire is a guiding hand during a terrible storm. They believed that the ghostly, dancing flame is a sign that the storm is weakening or ending.

Iceman's cool voice comes over the headset, telling me that it won't hurt our aircraft. He also said St. Elmo's fire can sometimes be heard singing on the aircraft's radio, a frying or hissing sound running up and down the musical scale.

Iceman then added, in his smooth, resonant baritone, that it's actually a sign that lightning is about to strike the plane.

What!?!

Blammo! You guessed it! Lightning just zapped the plane. We took a big dip.

Hey, we just took Mitch's best shot and we're doing fine…except for my stomach. Whoa! If only they had this ride at Disney World! They could call it the “Whirl and Puke.”

I don't know if St. Elmo's fire is a good sign or not; it was certainly quite the show and a big hit with the crew.

Minutes later, we exit the upper right of Mitch to smoother air and our first pass is complete. Oh boy! Only five more times to go!

Five passes through Mitch later, my face is green and my hollowed eyes are rolled back in my head. How do these people do this for a living? Would someone please come and put me out of my misery?

Mitch tossed me around like a wet dishrag. I had the great pleasure of filling three hefty airsickness bags. I tossed not only my big breakfast, but lunch and dinner from the day before. I launched things I had eaten in previous decades. I threw up my great-grandmother's meat loaf that I ate in 1967. I was soaked in sweat right through my flight suit.

To top it off, Iceman resonates through my headset, “You did great; you only passed out for about ten minutes.”

Thanks, Iceman.

The crew was amazing. This was like a day at the beach for them. I am so thankful they are on our weather team!

I read the written report that was sent back to the Hurricane Center. It had all the usual information about the conditions of Mitch during the flight: wind speed, strongest convection, eyewall characteristics, and so on. There was one little footnote at the end—something they almost never do: talk about how the ride went. The weather officer wrote that “though a rough ride, all managed to ‘stomach' the trip.” All but one that is! I was glad he didn't sell me out.

As for Mitch, he went on to be one of the deadliest and most powerful hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin. At the time, Mitch was the fourth-most-intense hurricane in recorded history. It currently ranks seventh. Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall in Honduras and Nicaragua. Most official reports placed the rainfall at 3 feet. There were some unofficial reports of 75 inches!

Deaths due to the catastrophic flooding and mudslides made Mitch the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history; 11,000 people were killed and more than 8,000 were classified as missing. That's a total somewhere in the neighborhood of 19,000 lives lost!

After Honduras and Nicaragua, Mitch made a right turn back toward the Gulf of Mexico, brushing the north coast of the Yucatán, and making a bead for South Florida. Though by this time Mitch was losing strength, he still had some wallop left.

With a 4-foot storm surge and sustained winds of 40 mph, Mitch dropped 7 to 10 inches of rain and five tornadoes on South Florida. Mitch destroyed 645 houses, injuring 65 people, and killing others who drowned when their boats capsized.

Because of Mitch's destruction in Central America and Florida, the World Meteorological Organization retired his name in the spring of 1999; it will never be used again for an Atlantic hurricane.

This is Iceman, requesting permission to fly by the tower…

Differences Between Hurricanes and Tornadoes

While both hurricanes and tornadoes are atmospheric vortices (a vortex is a counterclockwise rotation of air), they have little in common. Tornadoes are produced from a single convective storm, as explained in the tornado section of this book, and most are no more than hundreds of feet wide. Hurricanes are made up of many convective storms and are hundreds of miles wide.

Tornadoes are produced in regions of large temperature gradient, meaning that it's very hot at the surface of the land but changes gradually to very cold high in the atmosphere above. Hurricanes are generated in regions of near zero horizontal temperature gradient, meaning that the temperature is consistent throughout the air column.

While some tornadoes form over water, the majority of tornadoes form over land; the sun's heating of the earth's surface usually contributes to the development of the thunderstorm that spawns the vortex. In contrast, hurricanes are purely oceanic phenomena. They die out over land due to losing their source of moisture—the ocean.

Last, hurricanes take days to develop, do their destructive business, and disintegrate, while tornadoes typically last for only minutes.

The Greatest Storm on Earth

The most powerful storm ever recorded on the Earth's surface—since we've been able to keep track of these things—was Super Typhoon Tip, which formed in the western Pacific Ocean on October 5, 1979. Between classes—I was in college at the time, attending Mississippi State University—I watched the reports of this storm as closely as I could.

Slow to develop and exceedingly erratic in its early movement, Tip eventually grew into a monster storm with a cloud formation of 1,350 miles in diameter. If the storm had been centered in the Gulf of Mexico, it would have stretched from Miami, Florida, to Amarillo, Texas.

Dude, that is
huge
!

Tip's gale-force winds extended out from its eye for a radius of 683 miles, about five times greater than a typical Atlantic hurricane. At its peak on October 12, the air pressure in the eye fell to 870 millibars (25.69 inches of mercury), the lowest ever measured at sea on the planet. This is the equivalent of what normal air pressure would be like at 2,500 feet.

Winds circulating around Tip's eye were blowing at a sustained rate of 190 mph, with gusts probably well over 200 mph. The eyewall extended up to 55,000 feet, where infrared temperatures were measured at an incredible –135ºF (–92.8ºC). Fortunately, Tip never made landfall, though it took a shot at Guam, swerving at the last moment to the west and thus sparing the small and vulnerable island.

By October 18, Tip had accelerated toward the northwest and was rapidly losing power. By the time it brushed Japan on October 19 and 20, it was much tamer. Wind gusts were only 88 mph along the runways at Tokyo's airport.

There have been other storms with lower air pressure. Cyclone Monica, which struck Australia's north coast in April 2006, now holds the world record for lowest pressure for any cyclone at 868.5 mb (25.65 inches of mercury). Meteorologists would expect this level of air pressure to be related to estimated winds of 180 mph, with gusts to 220 mph. However, when Monica struck the unpopulated area of northern Australia, there were no weather instruments in place to provide an official record of her wind speeds.

In the Atlantic Ocean, 1988's Hurricane Gilbert's 888 mb (26.22 inches of mercury) had retained the record for the lowest estimated pressure for more than a decade. I flew aboard the Hurricane Hunter during that hurricane and what a ride that was! However, Gilbert's record was eclipsed by Hurricane Wilma's 882 mb (26.04 inches of mercury) in October 2005.

However, despite these achievements in low air pressure, no other cyclone has ever reached the size and scope of Super Typhoon Tip.

Hurricane Extremes!

LARGEST EYE—EYE SEE YOU!

SMALLEST EYE—EYE CAN'T SEE YOU!

WHO'S THE BIGGEST, BADDEST, AND MEANEST OUT THERE?

DEADLIEST EVER!

WHAT'S THE HURRY? WHO'S THE FASTEST?

WHOA—TOO MUCH COFFEE, WAY TOO INTENSE!

WHAT HURRICANE HAS COST THE MOST?

Hurricane Katrina's eyewall as seen by the Hurricane Hunters

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce

DEADLIEST HURRICANE OF THE ATLANTIC BASIN