Snip ...
Still 2 cat 5 hurricanes during an El Niño year is still unprecedented.
I hate the use of the word unprecedented. It only means hasn't happened before. Doesn't even mean unusual. It seems a lot of people make use of it to snow-job the target of their words. My first child was also unprecedented. Never happened before in my family. No big deal to humanity though.
Calling a storm land-falling is somewhat fuzzy. The definition of landfall that I used was strict. The NHC database must have recorded the grid coordinates of the eye over land. I then used the wind speed for that record to determine if it was land-falling cat5 or not.
Most storms have eyes larger than 60 nm(nautical miles) across. Some may use a more relaxed definition of land-falling. They may call a storm land-falling at 30-60 nm or more.
If I used 30 nm as leeway for the definition, I would have come up with 18 qualified storms prior to 2007. All in individual years. Using that standard, would you still think it unusual that one particular season had two of them? I certainly wouldn't.
30 nm amounts to almost nothing in storm travel. But it can make a big difference in sample size when nearing land. Winds tend to drop as parts of the storm start crossing land. If the storm eye diameter is small the center of the eye has more of a chance to plotted over land before breaking down. Large eyed storms are less like to be plotted right over land without winds starting to break down prior to center eye landfall.
Also, my statement that there were only 4 years with 2 cat 5 storms making landfall was incomplete.
Donna and Ethel in 1960, Carla and Hattie in 1961, and Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005 all were cat 5 and all made landfall, though none were cat 5 at landfall.
Doesn't really apply then.
And as you pointed out Dean and Felix were both cat 5 on landfall.
The NHC hasn't put out the 2007 database with the post season analysis yet. I don't have the official 2007 records yet. I just accepted your word on those storms.
My point being, taking 2007 and saying it was a mild season therefore there is no increase in hurricane intensity is premature to be kind.
Not really. Hypothesizing publicly in the media about an increase in intensity without demonstrable proof is premature to be kind. Why worry the public until you can demonstrate an actual need for them to worry?
28 cat 5 hurricanes since 1928, and 6 in three years. Do the math and come to your own concusions.
Of course other statistical analyses may lead to different conclusions.
Don't know where you got the 28 from. Actually the total is now 29+2 including 2007.
I did. I see only normal variability.
All this hype is due to cherry-picking of parameters. I have 19 adjustable parameters to mix and match when looking at the NHC database. Literally trillions of relationships can be culled through looking for something to make a big deal about. Probably millions would turn out to be unprecedented.(ugh)
One more thing. Prior to satellite era the equipment had to be in the storm to determine peak wind speed. Did you ever wonder how often equipment was destroyed before the strong storms actually hit peak wind and therefore couldn't record it? No cat5's to be found in the database in the 70 years prior to 1928. I think that says something about pre-satellite equipment along with the observation location.
