Yes, better than the other way around and we are happy with the outcome. But I have truly mixed feelings about all the hype and the dire predictions. Not to mention the inflated coverage by everyone from the local news to national news to the BBC. They cherry pick what to show and what to report to make it seem as sensational as possible. I feel that's irresponsible.
Unfortunately it's all about ratings (market share) which directly influences advertising revenue. I quit watching the "murder of the day show" (Miami news) several years before I left. There is virtually nothing on there I wanted top see, and it is all depressing.
CBS Miami had the best hurricane forecasting, but the guy who anchored that is now on the Weather Channel, which has become a sensationalist money machine for IBM. How many times do we need to see a guy standing in a storm with a microphone?
There are some areas in Florida that got trashed pretty bad, and much of that hasn't made the news. The lower keys, Marco Island, and some of Naples had heavy damage, but a lot of that is due to poor construction. There are reports of extensive damage in the older areas of St. Augustine, but I have not seen any evidence of that or talked to anyone who has been there.
Apparently as many as possible. Some even tethered to building so as to not be "blow away". Oh yeah, what about the camera and cameraman? Jeez.
I have been an eye witness to too many events that made the news over the past 50 years. What I see on the news looks very little like what I saw in person. Is what the media show real? Yes? It is a cherry picked worst example they can find? You betcha.
This has become standard practice, you probably missed the one or two Nor'easters that dominated our local news and turned out to be little and in one case almost nothing. Every one becomes the Blizzard of '78.
From what I was watching, the hurricane made a last-second eastward turn after munching through the Keys (talk about damage there...) such that it not only lost a ton of energy, but also kept a huge amount of the most damaging part of the storm off the coast. Our ability to model storm paths is so much better than it's ever been, but it's still a impossibly complex model. The most probable forecasts didn't have this outcome.
So I'd be reluctant to call it over-hyped, at least from the models perspective. The media's interpretation, on the other hand... (aaaaaand how to get my blood boiling is reading the media accounts of technologies/research I'm familiar with.)
So I'd be reluctant to call it over-hyped, at least from the models perspective. The media's interpretation, on the other hand... (aaaaaand how to get my blood boiling is reading the media accounts of technologies/research I'm familiar with.)
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There are some good articles out there on this problem, one point they made is that the European model is not local and includes the entire atmosphere of the earth (hard to believe) and so takes more time (12hr. or so) to make one update on the fastest supercomputers available. Still they were all off in the end.
From what I've read the two main factors that put Florida into the better than expected outcome was the long interaction of Irma with Cuba which sapped a lot of energy, and the turn placing the eye path substantially inland on it's way north. The latter both disconnected the storm from the warm Gulf waters and had the flow seaward on the stronger northern flank of the hurricane.
In view of the precision of predicting these paths I don't think this is a case of overhype, rather it's incredible good luck. Officials would have been derelict in their duty not to assume and predict that Irma had the potential for historic destruction.
In view of the precision of predicting these paths I don't think this is a case of overhype, rather it's incredible good luck. Officials would have been derelict in their duty not to assume and predict that Irma had the potential for historic destruction.
And there is the crux of the problem. It becomes prudent to run around shouting "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" then when it does not, to shrug it off. and claim "we got lucky." If you don't sound the alarm, then you are considered derelict of duty and minimizing the risk. Not an easy decision, so most people choose to C.Y.A (cover your backside). And of course, alarm and panic is an easy sell.
What would be nice is a study going back 20 or 40 years looking at the accuracy of projected hurricane paths, along with predicted damages and flooding. Just how good are we at predicting these things?
What would be nice is a study going back 20 or 40 years looking at the accuracy of projected hurricane paths, along with predicted damages and flooding. Just how good are we at predicting these things?
Agreed. Both before and after the weakening of the storm, I can say that my local news was pretty sober and non-sensational regarding how they spoke at will at any particular moment during what was.. exhaustive coverage. That last part is unavoidable; we saw what it did to the outer Caribe, and even as late as Sun morning I was watching fresh twitter videos from the Keys and thinking.. wow, I dunno about this. Now, I stayed and it would take actual real fear of physical danger (with my 15 foot above sea level luxury!) to get me to leave. But really, an annoying percentage of non-reactive people need exhaustive coverage to take action during a potentially serious natural disaster. Another annoying percentage freaks out and empties the store shelves. It's a unspoken civic duty that there will come a time when the public airwaves have to turn and then stay on coverage of this "thing". I will say, what nobody predicted or spoke with confidence of occurring was how big of a bullet most of the west coast would receive by the storm veering back to day-old models, let alone the weakening which didn't really occur until overnight Sat to Sun. And the west central area dodges another...
I did some digging yesterday and a number of institutions look at the accuracy of hurricane predictions, including NOAA and NHC themselves.
Predicting hurricane seasons and individual storm strength is not very accurate, and hasn't gotten better.
Predicting storm path 1 to 2 days out has gotten slightly better since 1970. Where the big gains are is in predicting the path 3 or 4 days out. That's improved significantly over the decades. I haven't found info on flooding or other storm damage forecasting.
Predicting hurricane seasons and individual storm strength is not very accurate, and hasn't gotten better.
Predicting storm path 1 to 2 days out has gotten slightly better since 1970. Where the big gains are is in predicting the path 3 or 4 days out. That's improved significantly over the decades. I haven't found info on flooding or other storm damage forecasting.
In 2004 none of the local forecasts called for flooding. So when it started to occur there was less than three hours notice. My shop got 62".
After that one local TV forecaster predicted flooding every time it rained. Folks who had been through the real flood suffice it got a bit excited from that. Both one if the next door owners and a lady across the street had strokes within six months.
The more accurate local forecasts were ignored. Finally the best one was forced to follow the sensationalism. But she did it with style, waving her hand down she stated "of course some low lying basements might flood.
But the sleazy folks still predict flooding for almost every rainfall and ocasionally show pictures of a few feet in someone's unfinished basement.
So responsible folks will present weather warnings when needed but will mention the worst. A's use it for the ratings.
The worst guy is still around but they hired someone above him and he gets the lousy time slots. If I hadn't been hit so hard I would have put together a video of his hysterics vs the actual weather bureau forecast and the petitioned the FCC to immediately suspend the station's license for endangering the public welfare.
The now dead neighbor was scurrying around a few weeks after the real flood after hearing a false prediction and when I tried to show him the actual river forecast he wouldn't even wait around for my computer to boot and get the river chart.
The flood stage is around 21'. The C.O.E. Was keeping the river level below 16' after that. For this hurricane season it is below 11'.
Obviously hurricanes are not as easily controlled.
After that one local TV forecaster predicted flooding every time it rained. Folks who had been through the real flood suffice it got a bit excited from that. Both one if the next door owners and a lady across the street had strokes within six months.
The more accurate local forecasts were ignored. Finally the best one was forced to follow the sensationalism. But she did it with style, waving her hand down she stated "of course some low lying basements might flood.
But the sleazy folks still predict flooding for almost every rainfall and ocasionally show pictures of a few feet in someone's unfinished basement.
So responsible folks will present weather warnings when needed but will mention the worst. A's use it for the ratings.
The worst guy is still around but they hired someone above him and he gets the lousy time slots. If I hadn't been hit so hard I would have put together a video of his hysterics vs the actual weather bureau forecast and the petitioned the FCC to immediately suspend the station's license for endangering the public welfare.
The now dead neighbor was scurrying around a few weeks after the real flood after hearing a false prediction and when I tried to show him the actual river forecast he wouldn't even wait around for my computer to boot and get the river chart.
The flood stage is around 21'. The C.O.E. Was keeping the river level below 16' after that. For this hurricane season it is below 11'.
Obviously hurricanes are not as easily controlled.
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