What's up with them buoys?

I've spent a lot of time over the past couple days watching the buoys and tide gauges along the Texas and Louisiana coast to get an idea of what our project sites would be experiencing during Hurricane Rita. Unfortunately, my buoy watching experience was seriously disappointing - either something is wrong with them or my idiotic conspiracy is true!

As a brief explanation, the Saffir-Simpson hurricane classification is as follows (note: wind speed refers to sustained wind speed):



Based on a review of the NOAA data stations (1. NOAA Tides Online, 2. National Data Buoy Center, 3. National Hurricane Center), the highest wind speeds (gust - not sustained wind) recorded at the land station near Sabine Pass was 99mph with a maximum sustained wind speed of 82mph (2). The offshore buoy (42001) that had the lowest air pressure (close to 27in - which suggests the Hurricane passed directly over it) was even more disappointing with a measured wave height less than 35 ft and wind speeds near 50mph (reported during the storm) (2). While these two values correspond (to each other) based on wind/wave analysis (calculations that predicted the fully developed wave height based on a sustained wind speed) - they differ drastically when compared to the wind speeds reported by the National Weather Service and what the expected wind speed should have been based on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. I obtained a final final plot from buoy 42001 which shows (I'm guessing) information not posted in the Hurricane Rita update windows that shows the maximum wind speed near 90mph (created after the storm) (2).



Even the storm surge was less than that predicted for a stronger storm, ranging between 2-5ft along the LA and TX coasts (1).

While not a big deal to the general public, this discrepancy is cause for concern among coastal and ocean engineers as buoys and near shore data stations are the source of historical wind conditions that are used to create statistics that give us an idea what the probability is for a storm to occur during a projects lifetime. Not having correct wind conditions could distort the statistics and result in analysis that underpredicts the wind speeds for a particular area and projects that are under designed.

And, while I'm glad Rita didn't come ashore as a stronger storm, I'm disappointed that the tide gauges, buoys and other stations did not record better data - blah!, I wanted to watch it come ashore numerically!


Of course, for those interested in an alternative explanation Bob and I (because we obviously have nothing better to do) created a great theory that would explain why the buoys didn't record higher winds, waves or surges - and true to form it involves a government conspiracy...