Wind speed
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Would like to understand how sustained wind speeds are calculated to determine a tropical cyclone's category level. According to Windy, the maximum wind of hurricane dorian is 142km/h with gusts up to 216km/h despite being a category 5 hurricane. Usually even for the most intense tropical cyclones like those of Cat 4/5 the app only showed max winds of 140km/h with the 'Wind' tab.
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Please see many other threads regarding this subject, including this recent one:
https://community.windy.com/topic/9456/dorian-wind-speed-and-pressure/2
And the detailed discussion here:
https://community.windy.com/topic/4415/why-is-wind-speed-in-hurricanes-so-wrong
Additionally, Windy does not create any forecast data but instead only visualises forecast and actual data received from various third party providers.
There are many useful but also complex and expert level tools and data available via Windy, therefore the user must always take care:
- To understand what information they are displaying and viewing
- To understand from where and when the information was sourced
- To understand what this information actually means.
Comparing Forecast data with Actual data can be a common mistake.
Around 1300 UTC the Windy Hurricane Tracker was reporting wind speeds of 142kn / 164mph / 264kph.
Hope this helps :)
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In addition a further recent topic here with a screenshot explanation of how comparisons can easily be invalid depending on the data used:
