@RationalLeft Also what happens when the underwater landscape has been dredged to hell and back for offshore drilling operations. There are no more speed bumps left in the gulf.
@phase2 I'm unfamiliar with that effect. The argument, I take it, being that it weakens variations in depth and temperature?
I've noticed many times that hurricanes often make landfall slightly weaker than the predictions said.
With Idalia it was the opposite. Not only were the dire Cat 3 predictions accurate, it was *barely* short of Cat 4 when it made landfall (125 mph; Cat 4 starts at 130).
That's what happens when a storm moves over bathwater-temperature Gulf waters.