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Hurricane Donna, the only major hurricane to strike the United States during the 1960 Atlantic hurricane season, passed over the middle Florida Keys near Sombrero Key before making landfall southeast of Naples, near Goodland, Florida, on 10 September at approximately 1600 UTC. This study makes detailed retrospective surface wind analyses of Hurricane Donna utilizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division's (HRD) H*Wind surface wind analysis system. Analyses were produced at intervals of 6 h between 1800 UTC 9 September and 1200 UTC 11 September 1960 while the hurricane was close to and over Florida. These analyses depict the storm track as well as the distribution and extent of tropical storm force, 50 kt (25.7 m s[sup -1] ), and the hurricane-force wind radii throughout this time period and include new methodologies for adjusting aircraft flight-level data to the surface in the tropical cyclone core environment. Algorithms were developed to account for the effects of eyewall tilt and the warm core structure typical of tropical cyclones. Additional methods were developed using global positioning system (GPS) dropwindsondes (sondes) to more accurately adjust boundary layer winds to equivalent surface winds. The Kaplan–DeMaria Inland Wind Decay Model was also used for the first time to adjust landfall data being input into the H*Wind system. These data were used to generate low-weighted background fields that helped generate postlandfall wind field analyses of Hurricane Donna. Finally, swaths of peak winds, duration of hurricane- and major hurricane–force winds, and wind steadiness were produced to facilitate damage assessment. The information provided by these objective analyses is significantly more detailed than the more limited descriptions of peak winds, storm position, and minimum central pressure available in the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) hurricane database archive (HURDAT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface wind fields of several tropical cyclones which impacted Florida Bay and the Surrounding coastal areas were reconstructed by the Hurricane Research Division (HRD) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. These cyclones provided the forcing for significant changes in water-levels, waves, and currents, resulting in sediment transport, deposition, and other physical processes affecting the bay. In addition, tropical cyclones had direct and indirect effects on plant and animal life in the bay and the surrounding coastal areas, such as the Florida Keys and Everglades. The HRD wind fields are being made available in gridded form for use in hindcasts, which may help researchers to estimate the potential impacts of future tropical cyclones on the south Florida ecosystem, especially in relation to Florida Bay. The tropical cyclones investigated represent vastly different scenarios for the type of events that might be expected over extreme south Florida. The reconstructed storms range in intensity from Tropical Storm Gordon of 1994 to the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (the United States' most intense hurricane at landfall). This paper summarizes the methods used to reconstruct tropical cyclone surface wind fields and provides examples of their circulation features and wind swaths. Comparisons of winds to observed damage are also presented for three major hurricanes. The wind fields for all of these tropical cyclones are being made available to researchers as graphical products and gridded data sets on a Web site maintained by HRD (www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]