Predicting Hurricanes: The Whirlwind of Controversy Surrounding Hurricane Alicia

Hurricanes will always be a way of life for many Texans. Young Texan schoolchildren learn about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 in their classes; they hear their grandparents discuss Hurricane Carla. Every summer, a flurry of maps, supply lists, and a list of twenty-six names remind Texans that the season is upon them, and The Big One could be coming this year. Texans plan their lives around possible hurricanes, planning their weddings, vacations, and family events on the very real fact that a hurricane may decide to interrupt their good time.

The middle of August, 1983, was no different; except this time, The Big One really was coming. On August 13, the residents of Houston, Texas and the surrounding areas had no idea their lives were going to be significantly impacted in the next five days. The residents, however, over the next five days, watched and waited as the Gulf of Mexico churned out one of the greatest weather-related disasters to ever hit the Houston/Galveston area.

Hurricane Alicia struck the area on the early morning of August 18, around 2AM.  Alicia is significant in her own right due to strength, destruction, and impact, but to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s division called the National Weather Service, and their division of the National Hurricane Center, Alicia was a chance to test out their new landfall prediction system. The landfall prediction system, which was decades in the making but got its start with Alicia, significantly saved lives and the benefits of testing it during this Texas storm has made it possible to better predict where hurricanes will land in the future, possibly saving millions of lives. The prediction system of using meteorological data to guess landfalls was in the minds of meteorologists for at least a decade before the system debuted with Alicia.

The Monthly Weather Review, a journal published by the American Meteorological Society, had articles discussing what methods could be used for landfall prediction at least a decade before Alicia, if not more. Forecasts taken at the 24 hour mark and studied, according to Neumann in “Trends in Forecasting the Tracks of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones”, go all the way back to 1954 (2). Seldom does a year go by in the Monthly Weather Review during the 1970’s and early 1980’s without Neumann and Pelissier publishing a scholarly paper discussing the ins and outs of how a landfall prediction system could be achieved, what would be its pros and cons, and what it would mean for hurricane tracking and forecasting as a whole, and also the social impact. Considerations were made to every variable of the storm, including its placement in the ocean, and angle of the hurricane path. Neumann and Pelissier write “landfall forecasts are likely to be more accurate and accompanied by less overwarning around the Gulf of Mexico than elsewhere in the United States” (An Analysis of Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Forecast Errors, 1970-1979 1981).

The small group of scholars who assembled the working prediction system did not obviously expect such a storm as Alicia. Predicting something as unstable and unpredictable as a hurricane is naturally hard for the National Weather Service. Nevertheless, predictions, beginning with the first advisory regarding Hurricane Alicia are issued with every advisory. A hearing before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agricultural Research and Environment explains that the National Weather Service and their specific department of the National Hurricane Center issue “advisories (every six hours) and bulletins (between advisories when necessary) whenever a hurricane becomes a threat to the United States” (23). Once a hurricane makes landfall, it is said to “hit” the coast. The question of the landfall prediction is determining where exactly this will happen, which is, of course, hard. This difficulty can be seen in their definition of a “hit”. A landfall “hit” is when the eye makes landfall 65 miles from the point at which they forecast. For example, if a hurricane is forecast to hit Corpus Christi, TX, and the eye makes landfall not directly over Corpus Christi, but still within 65 miles, it is considered a “hit” by the National Weather Service.

When predicting a hurricane, many computer models are used to determine where the storm will go next. Many weather-watchers may remember these models being broadcast on the news during more recent hurricanes. When predictions began, there were significantly more models to look at, now there are about seven. When writing about landfall prediction when it was still in the planning stages, C.J. Neumann and Joseph M. Pelissier wrote in an article called “Models for the Prediction of Tropical Cyclone Motion over the North Atlantic” for the Monthly Weather Review that “typically, the availability of so many models leads to conflicts in the determination of an official forecast” (522). If prediction of a normal hurricane is not difficult enough, Hurricane Alicia was a storm that did not follow the rules. The hurricane exhibited several signs that are rare in most Atlantic hurricanes. Early on August 17th, the storm’s eye began to circulate in a looping motion, known as a cycloidal eye. “Hurricane Alicia Galveston and Houston, Texas August 17-18, 1983”, a report to the Congressional Committee on Natural Disasters explains that “cycloidal motions in hurricanes tracks are difficult to forecast and have only rarely been observed in the past” (p13). The report also says that the “long quasi-steady deepening from weak tropical disturbance to full hurricane strength is very unusual” (p18). The eye of Alicia also, according to the report, “exhibited a very unusual ‘double eye’ structure…just prior to landfall, and surprisingly again during the two hours after landfall” (21).

No matter what good or bad came out of Hurricane Alicia, there was a wealth of meteorological knowledge that was studied and gained from the storm. The Committee on Natural Disasters Report of the storm asserts “Alicia is one of the best documented hurricanes ever to effect the United States” (p3). While it was wobbly and unpredictable on water, on land, it was also a memory-maker. Hurricane Alicia is widely considered to be one of the most impactful storms to the Houston/Galveston area on record. The Army Corps of Engineers’ report on the storm, published shortly after Alicia, said that “in terms of damage and recovery costs… ALICIA was one of the most devastating storms of this century” (44). Alicia was quite dangerous in this sense, but she was more dangerous due to the fact she formed so close to land, experienced the rare hurricane signs mentioned above, and took an unpredictable northern turn less than two days before Alicia hit land. This twist in her path is perhaps what caused the most confusion and panic.

Alicia appeared to be heading mostly to the west/northwest until about 5pm on Tuesday, August 16th. Also at this time, the advisory was updated to announce that Alicia had reached hurricane strength. Starting at 5am Wednesday, about 18 hours before she hit landfall, Alicia took a northern turn that baffled meteorologists. Still, the shift at first was not dramatic enough to make anyone worry. The Natural Disaster Committee’s report states “anyone projecting the path of the storm…at 5 pm Wednesday would have expected Alicia to make landfall around Matagorda (80 miles southwest of downtown Galveston…)” (p124). As the turn became sharper and sharper until Alicia was basically heading due north, the residents and city officials began to realize that turning at this point was the worst thing Alicia could have done.

Neumann and Pelissier wrote in 1981 that “Experience [studying the path of hurricanes] has shown in most cases, an effective compromise between accuracy and timeliness is reached if warnings are issued about 18 h[ours] before landfall” and adding a crucial piece that “12 h[ours] of which occur during daylight” (1264). Hurricane Alicia followed this plan, but her sudden shift at just 18 h before landfall put the previous predictions in the dust and her rapid strengthening caught everyone by surprise. The shift put an already nervous Galveston in terrible danger, but forecasters still planned the hurricane to continue at a mostly west-northwest motion. The Committee on Natural Disasters’ Report states “there is no obvious explanation for this change in the storm’s track” (14). This sudden shift put unexpecting Galveston and Houston residents in a dangerous position—given the new forecast with Alicia’s track, and the strengthening from barely a Hurricane to a Category 3, residents had to seriously consider evacuation, it was nearly too late to evacuate.

It was only after the last landfall prediction had been made at 5am Wednesday that Alicia’s winds were clocked at 100 mph and the storm was deemed “dangerous”. The Natural Disaster Committee Report notes that “when Galveston officials reached the time for a decision, the storm was a weak hurricane, intensification to category 3 was not expected” and further notes about the landfall location that “the most likely landfall location was forecast to be well to the southwest of Galveston” (p 129). The report goes on to say “when the storm became dangerous Wednesday afternoon, it was too late to initiate a large-scale evacuation of the island, and the predicted path was still to the south anyway” (p 129). An anonymous editorial in the Houston Chronicle published shortly after the hurricane said “it cannot have helped to have had Alicia characterized officially as having the lowest possible potential for disaster during much of the period when people are deciding what to do”, and adds “we think the weather service unfortunately tends to undercut its position by indicating a degree of dangerousness” ("Quantifying Hurricanes is a Risky Business" 1983).