Today is the 41st anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Camille near Bay St. Louis, MS (Around 11pm). One of three Category - 5 hurricanes (recorded) to strike the US coastline! Or was it? According to the HRD re-analysis of Hurricane Camille's wind field at landfall, it may have actually been a strong Category-4... I'll post images below, but again according to HRD re-analysis of Camille, they have max surface winds of 129 knots, or 148mph. That's 8mph short of the 156mph needed to obtain Category-5 strength. Remember, hurricanes are ranked off surface wind speeds, not storm surge or overall impact/destruction! If there is any doubt about that, see the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale for reference, which was changed this year for that very reason. Trust me, this is very hard for me to comprehend! As someone that has lived in Mississippi for over 10 years now, and has always considered Hurricane Camille a benchmark hurricane, it's really hard to imagine that Hurricane Charley "may" have been as strong as Hurricane Camille... We'll see if the HRD ever officially reclassifies Camille as a Cat-4, but it's starting to look that way. A 909mb Category-4? WOW!
Thanks to Michael Laca from bringing my attention to this & posting these images on his facebook page!
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