• HURRICANE WIND DECAY

The pull down menus to the left allow you to display examples of the Maximum Envelope Of Winds (MEOW). There are three menus, one for each of the regions: Gulf coast, East coast, and Northeast Coast. Click on the desired hurricane strength and it will link to the MEOW for hurricanes with various forward speeds.

The inland wind model was developed by Mark DeMaria (NOAA/NWS/TPC) and John Kaplan (NOAA/AOML/HRD). The model applies a simple two parameter decay equation to the hurricance wind field at landfall to estimate the maximum sustained surface wind as a storm moves inland. This model can be used for operational forecasting of the maximum winds of landfalling tropical cyclones. It can also be used to estimate the maximum inland penetration of hurricane force winds (or any wind threshold) for a given initial storm intensity and forward storm motion. For further explanation refer to:

Kaplan, J., DeMaria, M., 1995: A Simple Empirical Model for Predicting the Decay of Tropical Cyclone Winds After Landfall. J. App. Meteor., 34, No. 11, 2499-2512.