| Watch this and other space videos at SpaceRip.com Why some tropical storms erupt into monster hurricanes capable of wrecking coastlines. Can they be predicted? September 12th, 2008. A hurricane named Ike is headed toward the beaches of Galveston Island in Texas. The eye of the storm, where the most intense winds are, is still hundreds of miles away... Yet the rising water has already spread over much of the island. Eight days back, researchers had flown into Ike and measured its winds... at 145 miles per hour. That made it a category 4 out of 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Moving into the western Atlantic, Ike fed on a deep layer of warm ocean water, sweeping it up and growing to deadly intensity. Over a million people were evacuated from coastlines in Cuba as the storm approached. Ike weakened as it passed over the island. But as it entered the Gulf of Mexico by late September 10th, now on a beeline for Texas, it had begun to re-intensify. Residents of Galveston were ordered to evacuate. Most of the 58000 residents did. Thousands remained to brave the storm.... Despite the memory of another storm... over a century ago... that showed how vulnerable this low-lying island can be. September 6th, 1900... powerful waves began lashing the coastlines of Louisiana and Mississippi. With swells rising in Galveston, on the 7th, a hurricane warning was put into effect. That afternoon, a ship sailing from New Orleans encountered the storm. The captain estimated winds at 100 miles per ... |
