I don't think some of you really know much about hurricanes, but it's not too surprising since media coverage regarding hurricanes only happens when one is going to make landfall in the US, and it's not something that most people really learn about in the first place.
Marksman Bryan Wrote:I don't think that was an actual hurricane when it hit land, though.
This doesn't matter. It isn't very uncommon for tropical storms to do more damage or cause more deaths than hurricanes. What matters when it comes to tropical cyclones is the size of the storm, how fast it is moving, and where it makes landfall. A category 5 hurricane can do less damage than a category 1 if it's much smaller and/or faster. Irene did not do a lot of damage to New York because by the time it got there, it was a fast moving tropical storm. Meaning the winds and rain were not around long enough to cause much of an impact to the area.
street Wrote:When a hurricane hits america its not as bad compared to when it hits all the tiny islands in its path.
This isn't always true. Or rather I should say, it's usually not true. While the several islands in the Caribbean do typically get affected by tropical systems more often, storms are typically moving at an average/above average speed while out there, and the islands are all rather tiny in size, damage is usually not very large or long lasting. On the other hand, by the time a storm gets to the US, it is usually stronger than it was while it went by/through the islands. Often storms will slow down before/after landfall on the US until picked up by a frontal system, causing storms to drop a considerable amount of rain, while producing strong winds and dropping tornadoes, on a much larger landmass.
A good example of this is, Hurricane Irene, from last year. Irene went through/by the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as a tropical storm and category 1 hurricane causing around $570mil in damage to those islands. It continued to strengthen, and get bigger in size, and while it did make landfall on North Carolina as a category 1, it was a much larger storm and was somewhat slower moving, causing as Locked quoted earlier; $15.6b in damages.
Link Wrote:Isabel was worse. Way worse.
While Isabel did cause a considerable amount of deaths, it caused $15.4b less in damages than Irene did. It made landfall with 20 more MPH winds, but it was a much faster moving storm.
Hurricane Sandy, or rather Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy is an incredibly massive cyclone that has combined itself with a considerably strong cold front that just moved through the US, and it's moving at about an average speed. Due to its size and average speed, it has quite a while to have its rain and wind affect the US. It only made landfall on New Jersey yesterday evening, but it's already caused 13 deaths in the US, and 81 total. It is not a storm to underestimate. They never are.