Remembering the Landfall of Hurricane Audrey (credit: NOAA Hurricane Research Division)

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DISCUSSION: As we turn the clocks back all the way to 60 years ago today, we arrive at the historic landfall of Hurricane Audrey back on June 27th, 1957.  There is certainly no argument that Hurricane Audrey was about as classic of a hurricane landfall as there ever was during the earlier part of the satellite remote sensing advancement era.  
There is also no debate that even with the early primitive radar system located in east-central Louisiana (as depicted in the image attached above), this had to be a storm which surprised many people living across the western Gulf Coast region.  This is chiefly due to the fact that the combination of a smaller surface observation network and the more primitive range of geostationary earth-orbiting satellite imager capabilities, there was a more limited forecast accuracy potential overall.

Per the historical storm wrap-up discussion (courtesy of the NOAA Hurricane Research Division), there were many great details and aspects of the storm being discussed and some of this is included here for your benefit.

"In the morning hours of June 27, 1957, Hurricane Audrey sent a 12 foot (3.7 m) storm surge over Cameron, Louisiana, as the storm lashed the area with 125 mph (205 km/hr) winds. Many residents were caught by surprise and had not evacuated, and the storm took some 400 lives.Audrey was an unusual June storm.  It formed in the Bay of Campeche from a tropical wave on June 24th.  Over the warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico, the system gained some impetus from the end of a stationary front extending into the area.  By the time a reconnaissance flight reached the area on June 25th, it had already reached hurricane strength and was named ‘Audrey’.  It began a northward movement, slowly at first.  But the hurricane intensified and began to pick up forward speed.  While aircraft reconnaissance was maintained, the Navy Hurricane Hunters did not penetrate the eye of the storm because of its intensity.  Wind speeds were estimated at 125 mph (205 km/hr) for an encounter with a tanker ship Tillamook."

To read this entire article, feel free to click the following link!

To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here!

©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz