LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Andrew: Storm
built 192 days ago
As Hurricane Andrew approached Louisiana, an isolated storm on one of Andrew's raindbands spawned a tornado that traveled west-northwestward through Laplace, Louisiana. The tornado damage path was 9 miles long and about 150 yards wide. The tornado was rated F3 on the Fujita damage scale. Damage to homes was more severe in the tornado than hurricane-caused damage to similarly constructed homes in Louisiana. The tornado lasted ten minutes beginning around 8:10pm.
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![[IMAGE LINK]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/a/n/d/andrew/i/008.gif)
Significant changes in the large-scale environment near and downstream from Andrew began by 21 August. Satellite imagery in the water vapor channel indicated that the low aloft to the east-southeast of Bermuda weakened and split. The bulk of the low opened into a trough which retreated northward. That evolution decreased the vertical wind shear over Andrew. The remainder of the low dropped southward to a position just southwest of Andrew where its circulation enhanced the upper-level outflow over the tropical storm. At the same time, a strong and deep high pressure cell formed near the U.S. southeast coast.
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Hurricane Andrew could be traced back to an easterly wave that developed near Lake Chad in North Africa during the second week in August, 1992. A tropical depression formed along the wave when it was about halfway between Africa and the easternmost islands of the Carribean (11 degrees north, 38 degrees west) on August 17, 1992. Thunderstorms organized around the center of a low pressure system and the storm strengthened to tropical storm status later that day. It was at that time the name "Andrew" was assigned to the storm.
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![[IMAGE LINK]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/a/n/d/andrew/i/009.gif)
Andrew was a small and ferocious Cape Verde hurricane that wrought unprecedented economic devastation along a path through the northwestern Bahamas, the southern Florida peninsula, and south-central Louisiana. Damage in the United States is estimated to be near 25 billion, making Andrew the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history1. The tropical cyclone struck southern Dade County, Florida, especially hard, with violent winds and storm surges characteristic of a category 4 hurricane (see addendum on upgrade to category 5) on the Saffir/Simpson Hurricane Scale, and with a central pressure (922 mb) that is the third lowest this century for a hurricane at landfall in the United States. In Dade County alone, the forces of Andrew resulted in 15 deaths and up to one-quarter million people left temporarily homeless. An additional 25 lives were lost in Dade County from the indirect effects of Andrew2. The direct loss of life seems remarkably low considering the destruction caused by this hurricane.
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Hurricane Andrew moved steadily west along 25.4 degrees north latitude during the next day. The lowest barometric pressure (27.23 in. or 922 mb.) was recorded at 12:48pm on August 23, 1992, when the center of the storm was positioned east of the Bahamas. The hurricane had reached the upper end of category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Maximum flight level winds (10,000 ft.) were measured as high as 195 miles per hour or 170 knots.
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