Wake Island's weather station was wiped out about 21 hours ago.
Posted on 08/31/2006 9:37:02 AM PDT by HAL9000
Excerpt -
Super Typhoon Ioke, a Category 5 storm and the strongest to hit the Pacific in more than a decade, slammed into tiny Wake Island Thursday, threatening to submerge the U.S. territory, U.S. Navy weather forecasters said.The storm, packing sustained winds of more than 220 mph, with some gusts topping 250 mph, came ashore at about 10 a.m. ET, and was slowly tracking west, gaining strength over the warm tropical waters, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported. Wake Island is located about 2,300 miles west of Honolulu.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What kind of Frenchman is named "Thomas Cavanaugh" for pete's sake?!!! ;-)
Also:
REMARKS: 312100Z POSITION NEAR 20.5N 164.8E. MAXIMUM SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT AT 311800Z IS 48 FEET. NEXT WARNINGS AT 010300Z, 010900Z, 011500Z AND 012100Z. //
Reserving the name for my next surf band!
Wake Island's weather station was wiped out about 21 hours ago.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=460670
Super Typhoon Knocks Out Weather Sensors
August 31st, 2006 @ 8:32pm
By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press Writer
HONOLULU (AP) - Typhoon Ioke knocked out Wake Island's weather sensors on Thursday as it lashed the isle with some of the central Pacific's fiercest winds in over a decade, the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters monitoring the 2.5-square-mile atoll's wind and temperature gauges from Hawaii said the instruments blew out as the storm approached with winds of up to 155 miles per hour and gusts of up to 190 mph.
The most recent data before the instruments failed indicated Ioke slammed the island with 78 mph winds and 100 mph gusts, said Henry Lau, a National Weather Service forecaster in Honolulu. That was before Ioke's eye passed north of Wake Island, he said.
communications must be down, it might not be "wiped out".
Is that correct? I've never even heard of a storm that strong.
"So, if it's true, the media doesn't know anything about it."
Some do know about it. I heard it reported earlier today.
Thanks. Still one of the biggest I've ever heard of, though.
Hadda serious job offer to work on one o'em islands out there 6-7 years ago. I'd be a wet dead kitty now if I had accepted it!
A couple days ago, for those who want to add more to their bandwidth use:
I also have some satellite pictures of Ioke as it moved through the Pacific
I still can't find a confirmed story that anyone was left behind on the island.
I'm looking forward to the reports from the aerial inspection later today. At least I'm assuming it will be today. That is a BIG storm.
Any more news??? I guess Ioke is still in the "neighborhood", so they may wait another day or so before sending in recon flights.
A very pretty storm....
I'm seriously doubting that story about the "72-year-old French meteorologist" that stayed behind...sounds like an urban legend to me. If someone did stay behind, they're shark food now.
It just seems unlikely. The Air Force could have ordered him off, and surely if he somehow convinced them otherwise, the folks who did evacuate to Hawaii would have said something to the media about the lone holdout.
It would be too good a story for the media to ignore. They eat this kind of drama up.
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