Hurricane Andrew's Wind Speed?

An emailer named Brandon asked me this question:

What were Hurricane Andrew's wind speeds?

(This picture may answer that question...dangerously fast winds make weird things happen)

Well Brandon, I assume you mean peak wind speeds, and I will get to that. But you brought up a very interesting and historical Hurricane. Hurricane Andrew was the costliest natural disaster in US history with an estimated $25 billion in damage (1).

As Hurricane Andrew struck Southern Florida in August of 1992, it was classified as a category 4 Hurricane on the Saffir/Simpson scale. That's category 4 out of 5 to give you an idea of the intensity of this storm.










Now about the wind speeds of Hurricane Andrew: At Harbour Island, in the Bahamas, the anemometer measured a wind speed of 138 mph. That wind speed was the maximum that could be registered by the instrument.
(an anemometer [an-uh-mom-itter] measures wind speed and direction)

Because many anemometers were either maxed out or destroyed, it makes having an official peak wind speed difficult. Thus, we estimate.

The estimated sustained winds measured at 10 meters on a 1-minute average basis were about 145 mph, with gusts of at least 175 mph (can your car go that fast? Mine won't).

It could be that Hurricane Andrew's winds were even higher, 200 mph+, but without official data it is really hard to prove that.

The reason we spend so much time talking about Hurricane Andrew's landfall, is because typically Hurricanes weaken as they move over land. Thus, it is usually just as the storm makes landfall that you'll notice peak wind speeds. It is possible that many hurricanes achieve their peak winds over the ocean, but that usually doesn't affect many people and typically is difficult to gauge unless the hurricane's peak winds hit one of the buoys that is sparsely spread throughout the ocean.

IMPORTANT:

Hurricane Andrew was reclassified as a Category 5 hurricane (one of only three to ever make landfall in the US) with winds estimated to be about 165 mph. The reason for the reclassification was a better mathematical model which estimates surface winds based on the data gathered by the Hurricane Hunters. This improved model spit out a wind speed higher than previously thought. Hurricane experts agreed and upgraded Andrew to a Category 5. (http://www.noaa.gov/hurricaneandrew.html)

(1) http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/andrew92.html

Pictures and data courtesy of NOAA, and information can be found at the above URL