ORLANDO, Fla. – Ahead of hurricane season, News 6 invited viewers to submit their storm-related questions to be answered by our team of meteorologists.
News 6 Pinpoint Weather Chief Meteorologist Tom Sorrells received the following question from Sila, via Hearken:
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"Just a storm watcher nerdy question: When they say the eye wall is x miles wide, does that mean the strongest winds encompass that whole area, or do they diminish/weaken as you get further from the eye itself?"
Here is Sorrells' response to the viewer:
"Not a nerdy question at all. The width of an eye is the distance of calm in the center. The width of an eye wall is the thick, high-wind area blasting around that calm center. The high wind that you see quoted in that wall area is something that was recorded for a minute. Chances are the wind flow is not uniform.
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In other words, a wind of 150 mph is not flowing at all areas in that zone. However, the high wind is moving around the center and you can not rule out being smacked by a sustained wind of 150 mph.
Also, when I say that it's not uniform, I don't mean that a small streak is going 150 mph and the rest are going 75 mph. Usually, the drop off would be more like a sustained wind of 150 and surrounding winds of 135 to 140 mph.
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Either way, the eye wall is where the wind is usually the strongest. Usually the winds do decrease as you leave the center. Sometimes, especially in early-season tropical systems that are built well on one side and not put together on the other, you can get winds far away from the center that are stronger than winds close to the center."
To submit your hurricane-related questions and for more on ways to prepare for storms, visit ClickOrlando.com/Hurricane.