Hurricane Andrew Essay -- essays research papers

Hurricanes are notoriously capricious. Andrew was a compact system. A little largersystem, or one making landfall just a few naval miles further to the north, would havebeen catastrophic for heavily populated, highly commercialized and no less vulnerableareas to the north. That area includes downtown Miami, Miami Beach, Key Biscayne andFort Lauderdale. Andrew also remaining the highly vulnerable New Orleans region relativelyunscathed.Andrew moved nearly due westward when over land and crossed the extreme southern portion of the Florida peninsula in about four hours. Although the hurricaneweakened about one category on the during the transit over land, and the pressure rose toabout 950 mb, Andrew was remedy a major hurricane when its eyewall passed over theextreme southwestern Florida coast. The first of two cycles of modest intensificationcommenced when the eye reached the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the hurricane continued tomove at a relatively fast pace while its track gradually tu rned toward the west-northwest.When Andrew reached the north-central Gulf of Mexico, the high pressure system to itsnortheast weakened and a surd mid-latitude trough approached the area from thenorthwest. Steering currents began to change. Andrew turned toward the northwest andits forward speed decreased to about 8 kt. The hurricane struck a sparsely populated persona of the south-central Louisiana on the 26th. The landfall location is about 20 n miwest-so...