Hurricane Force

Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian was the first major Atlantic hurricane of 2019. The storm developed from a humble tropical wave, on August 24, into a full blown Category 4 major hurricane, by August 31. The following day, Dorian reached Category 5 intensity. At its height, sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 910 millibars (26.87 inHg).

According to Wikipedia, this ties Dorian with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, as the “strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane, measured by sustained winds.” But a quick look at the actual stats, shows that it is also tied with Hurricane Wilma and Gilbert. Hurricane Albert (1980) currently holds the title of the strongest sustained windspeeds of a hurricane at landfall. But there is another way to measure a hurricanes intensity, and that is Lowest Barometric pressure. Because some of these terms may be difficult or unfamiliar, I have included a definition of these below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dorian According again to Wikipedia, Hurricane Dorian is only the twelfth strongest hurricane in terms of barometric pressure. So what was it that made it, so devastating?

“‘Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing,’ Joy Jibrilu, director general of the tourism and aviation ministry, told CNN. Many of the missing are children, according to Reuters — including a 6-year-old boy who was blown into the waters of a storm surge. The UN says 70,000 people have urgent food, water and shelter needs. Hospitals are overwhelmed, the Miami Herald reports. Anyone who needed surgery in Grand Bahama has to leave the island to get it. Sen. Marco Rubio toured the Bahamas by Coast Guard helicopter, and warned on Twitter that the Abaco islands in the northern Bahamas are ‘increasingly uninhabitable’ and need immediate aid ‘to prevent a human catastrophe.’” https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0907/1074457-hurricane-dorian/ Great Abaco island is “virtually uninhabitable, with bodies piled up, no water, power or food, and militias formed to prevent looting,” BBC reports.

The answer to our question, as to what atmospheric conditions made Dorian so devastating, can be found once again on Wikipedia. “Dorian slowed its forward motion considerably, remaining essentially stationary over the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama Island from September 1 to September 3...” The hurricane stalled due to a region of high pressure above it to the North. The article continues; “Due to the prolonged and intense storm conditions, including heavy rainfall, high winds, and storm surge damage in the Bahamas was catastrophic, with thousands of homes destroyed and at least 20 deaths recorded.”

20 deaths? This witness testimony appears to suggest that the death toll was much, much bigger. The Wikipedia page is up-to-date, but the death toll of 20 persons was being reported within only a few days of the hurricane. Surely, you would expect it to rise considerably from these early estimates, but the wikipedia shows no signs of this kind of update. So did they get it right first time? Or is the woman in this audio clip simply exaggerating?

Abaco Island is not particularly wealthy and the dwellings were generally ill-equipped to handle this kind of storm surge. The photographic evidence of the destruction wrought on the island is undeniable, as are the reports of dead bodies floating in the ocean. So, why has the death toll remained static at 20? If we take look at this webpage; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Dorian_in_The_Bahamas we see that the death toll was 65, which appears closer to the truth.

We know that the Dorian stalled over the Bahamas for a period of two days and that this was caused by a a region of high pressure to the North. But could anything else have accounted for this? Some people suggest that some kind of weather modification may have been involved. The purpose of this was to distrupt a trading port on the island which was owned and run by a joint Chinese and Swedish firm. We can test whether there is any truth in this by examining fluxuations in the Earth‘s magnetic fields during this period.