Augustus (UR) What goes Down must come back Up

Something interesting I found while preparing for my presentation tomorrow, were historical local data of Barometric Pressure during on of the strongest hurricanes to hit Florida, Hurricane Andrew. So as Andrew approached Florida it created a pressure of 926 mBar which is about 1 atmosphere of pressure and also 926 hPa, from previous research we see the relationship of 1 hPa to 1 cm of water. The average barometric pressure is about 30 inHg which equals about 1013 hPa, showing that hurricane Andrew effectively rose the water level 87 cm or 34.25 inches (almost 3 feet), that is staggering and no wonder it created so much damage. Most sea walls were built to only stop 2 feet of water so water would have just flowed over sea walls in coastal cities. Now for a more recent example, Irma had the lowest pressure of a storm recorded in the Atlantic ever, it produced a pressure of 915 mBar or 915 hPa. Effectively raising water levels to 38.5 inches above normal (above 3 feet). I found that extremely interesting to see exactly how much unseen chaos hurricanes can create before they even make landfall. Barometric Pressure is generally a indicator of how powerful the storm is, with lower pressures meaning more powerful storms.

Infrared image of Irma provided by NOAA