Who's trippin' down the streets of the city
- From: gekko <gekko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:36:46 GMT
"Note that to rip a huge tree out of the ground and hurl it
the length of a football field, especially with the drag of
'damaging cars along the way' before landing it on top of
his car, Haddad's Fantasy Hurricane would need the
strength of a CAT 5 hurricane: winds at *over* 155 MPH. "
-- Sylvia
I did not see a cite for that presumed fact, nor do I know what the
quantitative bounds of "huge" or "hurl" might be.
But, never mind. Let's ponder a bit, shall we? We'll dig into a
mixture of google-able fact and my own experiences just for giggles.
I likes giggles.
Whereas the state of Arizona along with other parts of the Southwest
has a weather pattern known as the "monsoon season", where sustained
winds can get up over 60 mph and at 47mph, winds are strong enough to
uproot trees,
<http://geography.asu.edu/aztc/monsoon.html#winds>
And whereas there are also "gustnadoes", along with actual tornadoes,
and extremely strong wind storms of short duration called
"microbursts", "macrobursts", and "supercells,"
<http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/psr/general/history/>
And whereas the town of Fountain Hills, Arizona suffered severe
damage a few years ago where portions of clay tiled house roofs were
lifted off and blown across yards, trees were uprooted and dragged
across cars, and into the sides of homes,
<Anecdotal cite: Relatives of mine living there suffered only a bit
of damage to their house, but helped neighbors whose cars were
smashed (window glass, denting) and the wall of whose house was
bashed in by the tree. Those were not actual tornadoes, mind.
Simply winds with strong sheer.>
And whereas many, MANY years ago I experienced first hand a monsoon
storm powerful enough to down traffic and power poles, wherein a
street sign weighing approx 5 pounds had been torn off of its pole at
one major intersection and flung into traffic, causing damage such as
shattered windshields, dented hoods and roofs, dented sides as it
struck many passing cars, including the one I was driving for which
we collected insurance to repair the damage,
And whereas a cyclone generates storm winds for a wide distance about
its center, such that even a hurricane eye some 85 miles away from a
city can spawn tornadoes and strong sustained winds (60mph) in the
city,
<http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/roth/valate20hur.htm>
Be it known that
Relatively large trees can be uprooted with less than hurricane force
winds, and,
Gusty winds can move items, including trees, across some distance
causing damage to more than one structure, and
An item being flung about in a wind storm, even as small as 5 lbs,
can inflict notable, insurance-collecting damage to a car,
It is therefore feasible for a tree of undetermined size to be
uprooted, to be dragged or flung some distance and to inflict some
undetermined level of damage to more than one car-sized structure as
it goes. I could even see a moderately sized tree being whipped
along for 100 yards through a parking lot, scraping and denting as it
goes, only to be dropped when the wind shifted, across a car.
--
gekko
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague. --
Steven Wright
.
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