CHAPTER III 

 SIMULATIONS OF HURRICANES OF RECORD 

 1. Selected hurricanes of record 



Eligible hurricanes of record for the purposes of this study 

 were considered as those storms for which the historical information 

 required by the numerical model was available. This includes the 

 time series of the central pressure, radius of maximum wind and 

 surface charts of wind and pressure. These charts should cover the 

 entire Gulf of Mexico and Cayman Sea from the time at which the storm 

 center was outside the Gulf to sometime after landfall. Additional 

 importcuit data required includes the water level associated with 

 these storms at stations around the Gulf, in both the United States 

 cuid Mexico. 



Of the 26 hurricanes spanning the period 1950-1980 which were 

 examined as potential hurricanes of record, only hurricanes Carla in 

 1961 and Allen in 1980 had sufficient observations of the forcing 

 fields and the response histories. These are the hurricanes of 

 record used for verification purposes in this study. 



Hurricane Carla was an exceptionally slow moving storm with an 

 average forward speed of 13 km/h. Figure 5 shows the path indicated 

 by serial positions of the storm's center at six hour intervals. 

 Carla reached hurricane stage at 1200 GMT 6 September 1961 and the 

 center entered the Gulf through Yucatan Strait at approximately 1500 

 GMT 7 September with a central pressure of 970 mb. As it moved to 

 the northwest, it continously deepened and reached a minimum central 



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