Assignment 4– Weather
Name:
myUH ID#
In this assignment you will investigate weather-based disasters in Houston and Galveston.
Assignment Rules:
· All answers must be in complete sentences and written in your own words to receive credit. Questions involving tables or screenshots do not need complete sentences.
· Screenshots/images need to be your own work.
· Due by 4/9, uploaded to Blackboard via Turnitin
Rules Acknowledgement:
1. Before beginning the assignment, acknowledge that you know the rules of the assignment as listed above. Type “I understand answers need to be written in my own words in full sentences with the exception of values in tables. I also know screenshots/images need to be my own” (3 pts)
Part 1: Hurricanes (40pts)
Head to this NOAA website: https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/. This site shows historical hurricane tracks and their intensities. Type Houston into the location box and select “Houston, Harris County, TX” and then set the search distance to 100 miles.
2. Using the category filters to complete this table about hurricane statistics (8pts):
| Total number of storms (tropical storms to Cat 5) |
|
| Number of tropical storms |
|
| Number of hurricanes |
|
| Number of major hurricanes (Cat 3 to 5) |
|
Note: If a storm changed from one category to another within 100 mi, it only gets counted once.
3. Continuous records start in the year 1851, so there are 169 years on record. What is the recurrence interval of a storm (R) in each of these categories coming within 100 mi of Houston? (R = number of years on record/number of events) (8pts)
| Any storm rated tropical storm to Cat 5 |
|
| A tropical storm |
|
| A hurricane |
|
| A major hurricane (Cat 3 to 5) |
|
4. What is the probability (P) each year that a storm in each of these categories can come within 100 mi of Houston? (P = (number of events in a category/number of years on record) x 100) (8pts)
| Any storm rated tropical storm to Cat 5 |
|
| A tropical storm |
|
| A hurricane |
|
| A major hurricane (Cat 3 to 5) |
|
5. Now do the same to Miami, Fl. Type Miami into the location box on the home page and select “Miami, Miami-Dade County, FL”. Find the numbers of storms (#’s) and calculate the recurrence interval (R) and probability (P) for each. (12pts, 1pts each)
| |
#’s |
R |
P |
| Any storm rated tropical storm to Cat 5 |
|
|
|
| A tropical storm |
|
|
|
| A hurricane |
|
|
|
| A major hurricane (Cat 3 to 5) |
|
|
|
6. Describe any similarities and differences in the storm statistics between Houston and Miami. (4pts)
Part 2: The 1900 Galveston Hurricane (15pts)
Go to this NOAA website to read about the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and answer the following questions: https://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/galv_hurricane/welcome.html
7. What was the estimated windspeed and based on that, what was the category rating of this hurricane? (3pts)
8. What evidence did Galveston Weather Station Chief Isaac M. Cline use to issue a hurricane warning on September 8, one day before the hurricane hit? (3pts)
9. The storm surge from this hurricane is what caused the death and destruction. How high (in feet) was the storm surge of the hurricane compared to the highest elevation of Galveston? (3pts)
10. What two things did the city of Galveston do to help prevent this disaster from happening again? (3pts)
11. Did these actions taken help prevent or lessen disaster when another hurricane hit in 1915? (3pts)
Part 3: Severe weather in Harris County (42pts)
Now head to this website from NOAA: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/. This is an archive of weather events in the U.S. Select Texas as the state and hit search. Set the begin date to 1/1/1950 and the end date to 12/31/2019, select Harris County.
12. Set the event type to “tornado”.
a. How many tornadoes have been reported in Harris County over this 69-year period? (2pts)
b. How many days have tornadoes happened? (2pts)
c. Calculate how many days tornadoes touchdown in Harris County a year. (4pts)
13. Now set the event type to “lightning”. These are lightning strikes in Harris County, this record only goes back to 1996.
a. How many people have been killed and injured in Harris County due to lighting strikes? (2pts)
b. What do the deaths have in common with each other? You can click on the name of each event to see a description. (4pts)
c. How were 10 people injured by a lightning strike on 7/17/1997? (2pts)
14. Now set the event type to “heat” and look at the event on 9/21/2005
a. How many people were killed in Harris County? (2pts)
b. What was the average age of the people who were killed? (3pts)
c. Give a description of everything that was happening on this day. You will need to search for sources for more information. (3pts)
15. Download the “Houston Low Temps” Excel file. This is a record of the lowest temperature in Houston every year since 1921. Rank this 101-year record from lowest temperature to highest temperature with 1 being the lowest and 101 being highest. This time we are going to use the RANK function in Excel because we want years with the same lowest temperature to have the same ranking. For example, if a certain value has a rank of 3, and there are two instances of the value in the data, the RANK function will assign both instances a rank of 3. The next rank assigned will be 5, and no value will be assigned a rank of 4.
The syntax from the RANK function is RANK(number, ref, [order]) where number is the value you want to rank, ref is the list of values your comparing in the ranking, and order is whether you want to rank the highest value as 1st (0) or rank the highest value as your lowest rank (1). For the first temperature in our Excel file, we’ll use =RANK(B2, $B$2:$B$102, 1). Copy that formula for the entire dataset.
a. What is the ranking of 22? (3pts)
b. Now calculate the recurrence intervals for your data set. What is the recurrence interval for 20 in Houston? (3pts)
c. Create a scatterplot with recurrence interval on the x-axis and temperature on the y-axis. Add the appropriate trendline and show its equation and r-squared value. Paste this graph and information below. (3pts)
[Paste Graph Here]
16. The lowest temperature recorded during the February 2021 winter storm was 13.
a. What is your calculated recurrence interval for 13? (3pts)
b. What is the recurrence interval for 13 based on the trendline equation from your graph in 15c? You’ll need to manipulate the equation like we did in assignment 2. Enter this equation in excel =exp((y-b)/m), where y is 13, b and are the parts from your line equation. (3pts)
c. What is the difference between what you calculated from the data set and what you calculated based on the trendline from the data? Do you think this is a large error? (3pts)
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