[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

And to add to this, here is a Miami hurricane specialists take:

https://www.local10.com/weather/2021...-the-atlantic/

To compare the two events, we can start with the official forecasts. While the Louisiana forecasts were outstanding, the New York City forecasts were not. They were too little too late.

No experienced emergency planner should have been surprised by the events that unfolded in New Orleans and across southeastern Louisiana. People were well warned while the skies were still sunny with clear descriptions of the kind of damage that could occur.

But the New York situation highlighted the serious limitations in our messaging and alerting capabilities in weather situations that have the potential to produce life-threatening floods. Strong alerts weren’t issued until after the event was underway.


He then goes on to accurately explain the timelines of each warning issued in the NYC area, and how it failed the residents. He then ended with:


These are not easy questions to answer, but it will be a bigger tragedy if we don’t learn from this situation.

While I'm not sure it directly relates to your quote, one part of this I forgot to mention where although I think the science behind climate change is very real and should not be ignored, the media overhypes to diminish it's credibility besides my example of the likely lie on "most rain in one hour" and partially agree with Cambium

This whole idea going around on the news that "this is the first time NYC got a flash flood emergency warning". I think it's because they simply didn't do that kind of thing until recently? I mean this was pretty bad and I do believe scientifically the odds of getting these in the future is more than it was in the past, but I also can't believe in 150 years of record this would be the first time ever? I mean I'm sure if the warning existed in 1938 it would be applied to the Cat 3 that landfalled in Suffolk County (NYC still got 70 mph winds and the subways all flooded), just as an example. And what about during Irene?

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

And to add to this, here is a Miami hurricane specialists take:

https://www.local10.com/weather/2021...-the-atlantic/

To compare the two events, we can start with the official forecasts. While the Louisiana forecasts were outstanding, the New York City forecasts were not. They were too little too late.

No experienced emergency planner should have been surprised by the events that unfolded in New Orleans and across southeastern Louisiana. People were well warned while the skies were still sunny with clear descriptions of the kind of damage that could occur.

But the New York situation highlighted the serious limitations in our messaging and alerting capabilities in weather situations that have the potential to produce life-threatening floods. Strong alerts weren’t issued until after the event was underway.


He then goes on to accurately explain the timelines of each warning issued in the NYC area, and how it failed the residents. He then ended with:


These are not easy questions to answer, but it will be a bigger tragedy if we don’t learn from this situation.

On Tuesday they put out a Flash Flood warning and predicted 4-8 inches of Rain across the forecast area and warned of “Significant Life Threatening Flooding” Eastern PA, NNJ NYC and all of Southern CT had extreme flood risk zoned over them as early as Monday Evening

NYC got 8 inches of rain. New Haven got 7.5

Mets were good. public officials were bad.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

On Tuesday they put out a Flash Flood warning and predicted 4-8 inches of Rain across the forecast area and warned of “Significant Life Threatening Flooding” Eastern PA, NNJ NYC and all of Southern CT had extreme flood risk zoned over them as early as Monday Evening

NYC got 8 inches of rain. New Haven got 7.5

Mets were good. public officials were bad.

Meteorologists were only predicting 3” of rain (reduced from earlier) right up until the storm was hours away. Many areas received triple that amount in a very short time. Re “Flash Flood”, that’s an extremely common warning for the tri state area so, naturally, most wouldn’t take it too seriously, and perhaps justifiably so.

You’re right that plenty of blame is to go around, to include elected officials, but the spur of the moment dire warnings to seek higher ground were not issued by the NWS until people had minutes to act. Meteorologists didn’t seem to catch on until late, too.

How do we know they dropped the ball? Because if they didn’t, we would’ve seen large scale evacuations in many portions of the tri state area. That didn’t happen.

Let’s call it what it is - everyone had their guard down with this, and it resulted in many, many deaths.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

Meteorologists were only predicting 3” of rain (reduced from earlier) right up until the storm was hours away. Many areas received triple that amount in a very short time. Re “Flash Flood”, that’s an extremely common warning for the tri state area so, naturally, most wouldn’t take it too seriously, and perhaps justifiably so.

You’re right that plenty of blame is to go around, to include elected officials, but the spur of the moment dire warnings to seek higher ground were not issued by the NWS until people had minutes to act. Meteorologists didn’t seem to catch on until late, too.

How do we know they dropped the ball? Because if they didn’t, we would’ve seen large scale evacuations in many portions of the tri state area. That didn’t happen.

Let’s call it what it is - everyone had their guard down with this, and it resulted in many, many deaths.

Danbury area was forecast 4-6 with more in thunderstorms/// They had flash flood warnings out for a day or two.

Weather forecasters CANNOT WIN ..no matter what they do.

[mels]

Originally Posted by jp03

Danbury area was forecast 4-6 with more in thunderstorms/// They had flash flood warnings out for a day or two.

Weather forecasters CANNOT WIN ..no matter what they do.

Agreed, people are never going to be happy with meteorologists. People either cry they are hyping things up or in this case, claiming it was downplayed. I was also aware of the severity and I can now say the forecast was accurate in advance of the storm. It certainly wasn’t a surprise it was as severe as it was. It was exactly what had been predicted and reported by the local media. Kidyankee - aren’t you out of state? I haven’t heard anyone here in CT claim they weren’t aware of how bad it was going to be. Heck, my work had meetings about it days in advance leading up to the storm!

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by jp03

Danbury area was forecast 4-6 with more in thunderstorms/// They had flash flood warnings out for a day or two.

Weather forecasters CANNOT WIN ..no matter what they do.

Originally Posted by mels

Agreed, people are never going to be happy with meteorologists. People either cry they are hyping things up or in this case, claiming it was downplayed. I was also aware of the severity and I can now say the forecast was accurate in advance of the storm. It certainly wasn’t a surprise it was as severe as it was. It was exactly what had been predicted and reported by the local media. Kidyankee - aren’t you out of state? I haven’t heard anyone here in CT claim they weren’t aware of how bad it was going to be. Heck, my work had meetings about it days in advance leading up to the storm!

The problem here, guys, wasn’t just the forecasters, but also the NWS.

It’s important to realize that the laymen, of which most of us are, don’t look at rainfall in inches and determine whether or not it’s life threatening. We depend on our meteorologists and, subsequently, elected officials, to say “this is serious, lock it down or get your butts to higher ground”. That didn’t happen until the storm was already bearing down. And because that didn’t happen, many people perished.

Sorry, I’m not giving a free pass here. They messed up.

[hvexpatinct]

The messaging was very fragmented and inconsistently delivered.

Litchfield County is covered by Albany NWS and that coverage wasn’t lacking at all. They raised the red flag very early in the week.

However - the most useful info sharing in the public domain actually came from Albany based public officials and media, because this county may as well be in Canada as far as Hartford or NYC is concerned.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by mels

Agreed, people are never going to be happy with meteorologists. People either cry they are hyping things up or in this case, claiming it was downplayed. I was also aware of the severity and I can now say the forecast was accurate in advance of the storm. It certainly wasn’t a surprise it was as severe as it was. It was exactly what had been predicted and reported by the local media. Kidyankee - aren’t you out of state? I haven’t heard anyone here in CT claim they weren’t aware of how bad it was going to be. Heck, my work had meetings about it days in advance leading up to the storm!

Yea...I am not sure what they were supposed to do here.. I was well aware this could be a severe flooding situation. I guess the poster wanted the authorities to go door to door or something. Was it worse in some areas than expected ..absolutely.

Hmm..maybe that's why they err on the side of caution most times..but of course that gets everyone's ire up too.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by jp03

Yea...I am not sure what they were supposed to do here.. I was well aware this could be a severe flooding situation. I guess the poster wanted the authorities to go door to door or something. Was it worse in some areas than expected ..absolutely.

Hmm..maybe that's why they err on the side of caution most times..but of course that gets everyone's ire up too.

Perhaps you were aware, but as noted, the layman wasn’t. The warnings in the days, and even hours, before the storm unleashed were typical of warnings seen in the tri-state on a regular basis. They were *not* dire, as they should’ve been initially. The dire warnings didn’t come until it was too late. If you’re wondering what “they were supposed to do here”, that was it.

[Cambium]

Anyone remember this one?



All it takes is a little time & digging and you'll find the extreme events of the past.