3 Advances in Hurricane Science Could Make Us Safer
Twenty-five years since the devastation of Hurricane Andrew, weather forecasting is providing new insights—as Hurricane Harvey approaches Texas.
Twenty-five years ago today, the hurricane of South Florida’s nightmares arrived. Greedily inhaling energy from the warm, late summer waters, Hurricane Andrew ripped into southern Dade County just before dawn on August 24, 1992 with a ferocity almost beyond measurement.
The small, intense storm’s 165-mph winds altered the landscape and blasted away civilization for weeks.
“One-hundred-foot-long concrete beams flew 100 yards, plywood and two-by-fours split palm trees, flying boards penetrated concrete-block walls and killed people. All kinds of unimaginable things happened that had never been seen before,” said The Weather Channel meteorologist Bryan Norcross, author of My Hurricane Andrew Story. Norcross became a broadcasting legend when he and a WTVJ-TV news crew in Miami stayed on the air during Andrew’s
