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51 comments on Hurricane Dean's Impact on Oil Infrastructure

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gt on August 20, 2007 - 12:02pm

The first GE image shows Dean passing just north of the Cantarell complex. Since hurricanes are cyclonic and cyclones in the northern hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise, Dean should be pulling water from the gulf to the Cantarell platforms (i.e. winds at the platform will be out of the northwest/north).

Which is much worse than if the wind were blowing offshore.

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EntropyBrain on August 20, 2007 - 12:39pm

Agreed that there will likely be more input (in the form of rain) from the Gulf if Dean passes north of the Cantarell complex, but I'm pretty sure (I do live in Florida) the wind may not be worse even though it is unimpeded by land. Here is the effect that makes me think this:

Because the storm is traveling West, stationary objects on the North side of the eye will get the rotational velocity of the storm added to the translational velocity of the eye....on the South side of the eye, Vt is subtracted from Vr. It's not much of an effect, but 18 mph can be important when added to those high rotational speeds.

Let your views be known: www.cafepress.com/crashdummy

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Petrosaurus on August 20, 2007 - 5:20pm

It is just a wind speed problem to begin with as the 'fetch' is so short off the beach. No room for a big wave to develop. The backswing from a reestablishing storm after it has passed will send waves onto the shelf which has a magnifying effect. I think the wind is pretty insignificant; it's the waves that are a bigger worry. That said, I'm not seeing any direct damage to come due to location, but shutting down and removing the crews is only prudent.

On the other hand, I have no idea what size wave these platforms are built for so if you have fifteen feet of freeboard and a twenty foot wave on top of a surge... product testing time.

By the way, if a storm is moving 20 mph, the difference between the leading and trailing edges is 40 mph, unless I'm missing something. It's equivalent to the top of a tire going twice vehicle speed and the bottom being fixed.

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