Hurricane Dorian’s Numbers Don’t Add Up

Generally, I stay away from stories regarding the weather. As a reporter in 2005, I survived the lies and division Hurricane Katrina brought to the mainland when it made shore near New Orleans and I decided I would avoid any and all weather related news from then on.

However, I’ve been awake most of the small hours of today, researching and studying, after a friend made me aware of the strangeness happening in the Atlantic Ocean, over the Bahamas. Here is the basic layout from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), September 1, slightly before midnight: Hurricane Dorian made landfall with 185 mile-per-hour winds.

This is a typical report and an easy headline to write. However, checking the wind speeds at both Treasure Cay and Marsh Harbour International Airports, the highest wind readings were only 15 mph and 21 mph, respectively for the entire day.

Further, between the two, the highest gust generated was only 35 mph. What makes this odd is the fact that both airports, with their Federal Aviation Administration (FFA) regulated sensors, were less than 20 miles each from the eye-of-the storm, placing them in the highest wind zones at the time Dorian came ashore.

Now, to make things seem even more out-of-balance weather-wise, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains buoys throughout the seas, aimed at guiding ships from one place to another. Their federally regulated sensors show that the highest winds speed recorded in the path, as shown by the NHC, was only 26 mph and the lowest came in at six mph.

While Hurricane Dorian is a real storm, and all safety precautions should be taken, including evacuating if called on to do so, the math does not add up. There is a 164 mph discrepancy between the highest reading at either airport and the sustained winds as reported at 2300 hours create a 159 mph conflict in the reported data.

There is no way to reconcile these anomalies, unless I want to head down the proverbial rabbit hole and risk being labeled a conspiracy nut once more.