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All I hear from so-called weather 'experts' is how hurricane forecasting has gotten better and better in the past few years.
Currently we are only about two days from an expected landfall for the most recent ‘Hurricane of the Century”, Dorian, SOMEWHERE on the coast of Florida, yet the ‘Cone of Uncertainty’ has not narrowed to a more precise target for days, but instead, has expanded to where it now encompasses the entire state of Florida, from Key West to Jacksonville, plus half of Georgia! And they tell us that Dorian could actually miss land entirely and stay offshore! So they have EVERYTHING covered! Well, I really think that I could have published that on my own by observing satellite images along with having lived in Florida for over fifty years!
This is not the first time where the ‘experts’ have directed people to take action based on a large amount of uncertainty. Remember when they had entire regions of people evacuate from East Florida to West only to reverse that decision!
So am I the only one who is completely unimpressed by the level of competence and usefulness of Hurricane Forecasting by the National Hurricane Center, Weather Channel, etc.? It seems like the ‘experts’ are just CYA, pushing sensationalism, and driving everyone in the Southeast crazy, racing around town clearing store shelves, and battling each other in line at the gas pumps. Makes you wonder if Home Depot, Lowes, and gas and water companies are behind this.
Maybe I’m jaded because I live in South Florida, and it seems to qualify as a weatherperson you have to be young, pretty, and wear revealing outfits while wearing high-heeled shoes, or be stupid enough to go outside during a hurricane and get blown around while admonishing others not to do EXACTLY that.
Last edited by Rumann Koch; 08-30-2019 at 01:41 PM..
I can agree that the Weather Channel gets carried away whenever a storm pops up. But when I consider how many moving pieces are involved in forecasting the when/where/intensity of a hurricane; the National Hurricane Center does a decent job. As much as everyone wants it; perfection just isn't possible.
50 years? You should know storms often change course and changes the game.
In 2004 when Charley was coming in, I was on a conference call with guys in Orlando and Tampa. I was in Tallahassee. The guy in Orlando was telling the guy in Tampa that he had a guest room at his house if Tampa guy wanted to get out of town. He declined.
Charley changed path and went over Orlando later that afternoon.
4 days later our next telephone conference took place. Tampa guy made it through the storm.
Orlando guy still had a tall pine tree in his attic. The side it hit first was where the guest room was.
If authorities to told people that only specific areas were going to be affected and the storm track changes, a lot of people are going to be caught unprepared for the storm.
It certainly seems like forecasting in general has gotten a bit weird recently. Im seeing a lot of deviation between forecasts and reality even within 24h. I wonder if over reliance on models is now a problem because it sure doesn’t seem better than a decade ago. Obviously a lot of progress has been made vs 30-40 years ago but any improvements made recently are not that obvious.
The Weather Channel comes across like the home shopping network. They sell bad weather and advertising for bad weather. " New improved hurricanes and tornadoes".
All I hear from so-called weather 'experts' is how hurricane forecasting has gotten better and better in the past few years.
Currently we are only about two days from an expected landfall for the most recent ‘Hurricane of the Century”, Dorian, SOMEWHERE on the coast of Florida, yet the ‘Cone of Uncertainty’ has not narrowed to a more precise target for days, but instead, has expanded to where it now encompasses the entire state of Florida, from Key West to Jacksonville, plus half of Georgia! And they tell us that Dorian could actually miss land entirely and stay offshore! So they have EVERYTHING covered! Well, I really think that I could have published that on my own by observing satellite images along with having lived in Florida for over fifty years!
This is not the first time where the ‘experts’ have directed people to take action based on a large amount of uncertainty. Remember when they had entire regions of people evacuate from East Florida to West only to reverse that decision!
So am I the only one who is completely unimpressed by the level of competence and usefulness of Hurricane Forecasting by the National Hurricane Center, Weather Channel, etc.? It seems like the ‘experts’ are just CYA, pushing sensationalism, and driving everyone in the Southeast crazy, racing around town clearing store shelves, and battling each other in line at the gas pumps. Makes you wonder if Home Depot, Lowes, and gas and water companies are behind this.
Maybe I’m jaded because I live in South Florida, and it seems to qualify as a weatherperson you have to be young, pretty, and wear revealing outfits while wearing high-heeled shoes, or be stupid enough to go outside during a hurricane and get blown around while admonishing others not to do EXACTLY that.
Oh I see so you want an exact path and intensity forecast 4 days out...else its a fail. Do you realize how LUCKY we are that the forecasters give us this much warning? They are trying to forecast a monster that will turn on a dime somewhere near the coast. They HAVE to warn the whole coast.
Now the bull**** sensationalism I agree is garbage. but its not the forecasters you should be pissed at! wtf?
For years I've been wondering why, if we can put a man on the moon, we can't lessen the severity of a hurricane. They use the warm waters as fuel so why can't "they" do something to cool those waters in front of a ferocious hurricane? I guess the lessen we can take away from all these natural disasters is that Mother Nature is in charge and although we may be able to predict most of these events ahead of time, we can't stop them.
For years I've been wondering why, if we can put a man on the moon, we can't lessen the severity of a hurricane. They use the warm waters as fuel so why can't "they" do something to cool those waters in front of a ferocious hurricane? I guess the lessen we can take away from all these natural disasters is that Mother Nature is in charge and although we may be able to predict most of these events ahead of time, we can't stop them.
Even a nuke won't do it. And not sure man ever walked on the moon as far as it goes with me. We don't have the power needed to make a cane go away or change the direction.
I wonder why the Euro model always seems more accurate than the American one.
They both have their wins and losses to be honest. It's funny to me how far they diverge from each other quite often. I look at a GFS chart and a Euro chart for tomorrow and there could be 10 degrees between them. Pretty nuts given how reliable these models are meant to be by now.
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