![]() Forecasting intensity requires a better understanding of the ongoing physical interactions between the ocean and atmosphere within the storm. While over the years government agencies have gotten more proficient in tracking storms and predicting their paths, they have not really gotten a handle on how intense the storms are going to be as they travel. The problem was that there was very little the forecasters could do to predict such a jump in intensity. What happened to the forecast and the forecasters? The National Hurricane Center (NHC) was at full alert and the personnel were monitoring the storm as best they could. Image produced by the NASA GSFC Laboratory for Atmospheres using data from GOES-8. This GOES image shows Hurricane Opal as it sweeps over the Gulf Coast of the United States on October 10, 1995. Many feel that this loss of life and property damage could have been avoided if folks had been alerted of the storm's possible change in intensity the day before. history, totaling $3 billion in damage and claiming four lives. Though the storm dropped down a notch to Category 3 when it made landfall, Opal ended up being the fourth costliest hurricane in U.S. The residents gathered what they could, evacuated their homes, and lined up bumper to bumper on Interstate 110 in an effort to flee. The hurricane gathered energy from some then unseen reserves, jumped up in intensity to a strong Category 4 storm with peak winds of 150 mph, and threatened to turn Pensacola into a deluge of seawater and rain. Then overnight, as the hurricane moved across the Gulf of Mexico towards the city, something happened that no one predicted. At that time, the National Hurricane Center predicted that Opal would remain a Category 1 storm, packing peak winds of around 90 miles per houra veritable creampuff as far as hurricanes go. ![]() They pulled their boats out of the water, boarded up the beachfront businesses and went about their daily routines, fearing no more than perhaps a few fallen trees and a missed day of work. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science.ĭespite the forecasts that Hurricane Opal would hit their town in a little more than 24 hours, the residents of Pensacola, Florida, remained relatively calm on October 3, 1995. This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated.
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