Hurricane Andrew Essay -- essays research papers

Hurricanes are notoriously capricious. Andrew was a compact system. A little larger system, or one making landfall just a few nautical miles further to the north, would have been catastrophic for heavily populated, highly commercialized and no less vulnerable areas to the north. That area includes downtown Miami, Miami Beach, Key Biscayne and Fort Lauderdale. Andrew also left the highly vulnerable New Orleans region relatively unscathed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Andrew moved nearly due westward when over land and crossed the extreme southern portion of the Florida peninsula in about four hours. Although the hurricane weakened about one category on the during the transit over land, and the pressure rose to about 950 mb, Andrew was still a major hurricane when its eyewall passed over the extreme southwestern Florida coast. The first of two cycles of modest intensification commenced when the eye reached the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the hurricane continued to move at a relatively fast pace while its track gradually turned toward the west-northwest. When Andrew reached the north-central Gulf of Mexico, the high pressure system to its northeast weakened and a strong mid-latitude trough approached the area from the northwest. Steering currents began to change. Andrew turned toward the northwest and its forward speed decreased to about 8 kt. The hurricane struck a sparsely populated section of the south-central Louisiana on the 26th. The landfall location is about 20 n mi west-so...