I heard on my car radio a news report interviewing hotel and resort property owners on the East Coast that lost virtually all their bookings this holiday weekend due to warnings for hurricane Earl. A direct quote from one of the people interviewed was:
It was the storm that wasn’t
The Shelter Island Reporter in the Long Island area seems to like that phrasing too for their story:
Rain, heavy at times, is all the Island got from Earl, which was downgraded to a tropical storm by 11 p.m. Strong winds did not reach Shelter Island. The rain total on Shelter Island for Friday was 1.71 inches
About the same time, an email from my friend Jan Null, former lead forecaster for the NWS in San Francisco showed up on my phone. He’s railing on about the bad reporting in the media, which I can understand, because TV networks have been chomping at tghe bit to get a new hurricane lead story, and with the holiday weekend mixed in, it was a perfect media storm. Though, with not much actually happening inland, some reporters were perhaps stretching a bit.
Jan writes:
In watching and listening to coverage of Hurricane Earl, I have heard way too many “meteorologists” speak about “hurricane force gusts”! There’s no such thing! The amount of force of a gust is significantly less than the sustained winds that define a hurricane.
Here’s what I wrote for a piece in Examiner.com last year (http://www.examiner.com/sf-in-san-francisco/meteorological-pet-peeves-part-1-of-3 )
“Hurricane Force Winds” It seems that anytime there is a wind gust over about 60 mph the airwaves and other sources, including NWS statements, are rife with the expression “hurricane force” winds. While this might be good for conveying that it’s windy and might be dangerous, it’s both bad meteorology and bad physics! (And calling it a hurricane force gust doesn’t make it right either) Let’s start with some basics. The threshold for hurricane winds is when the 1-minute sustained winds equal or exceed 74 miles per hour.
Please note the word “sustained”! According to the NOAA Hurricane Research Division, peak 3 to 5-second gusts are approximately 30% higher than their associated sustained winds. This means that a 74 mph sustained wind of a minimal hurricane has gusts in the range of 96 mph. Quite a difference. But that’s just the wind speed.
What about the amount of force from the wind onto a surface that is perpendicular to the wind? From high school physics we remember that the force associated with a given speed is proportional to the square of the wind speed. (For the overachievers out there, the formula to calculate this force is: F = .00256 x V^2, where F is the force in pounds per square foot (psf), and V is the wind velocity in mph)
Consequently, the amount of force with a 74 mph gust is 14.0 psf, while the force from a 96 mph gust is 23.6 psf; or 69% higher. The bottom line is that a gust to 74 mph is NOT even close to hurricane force!
Regards,
Jan
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Jan Null
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Webpage: http://ggweather.com
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Alarmism of any type is unacceptable – whether it be of potential storm strikes or global warming. But people should be told the facts and be trusted to make their own conclusions. Earl was a big storm at one point and there was a chance that it could have caused a lot of devastation had its course changed a little. But the main prediction was for exactly what did happen.
Personally, living on the Bay of Fundy, I expected a whole lot more than I actually got. At one point most of the tracks were pointing straight at my house, but in the last 12 hours they veered off to the east giving us just 22mm of rain and max winds of 30km/h. Nevertheless, I put my outdoor furniture away, made sure I had enough gas for the generator etc. But in the end, never having experienced a hurricane, I was disappointed!
I do believe that alarmism is unacceptable, and could occasionally be even criminal – eg causing deaths by stampede after shouting “fire” – which I believe has happened. What irritates me almost as much, is the way that simple everyday weather reports have “value-laden” words attached. Such as – “we can expect MISERABLE weather this weekend”. Hey, I like rain! If i t makes you miserable, then fell free to do some wallowing, but don’t assume that we all feel the same!
Malcolm
My wife and are vacationing in Bar Harbor, ME and I can tell you that the storm was far less than a Nor’easter. There was very heavy rain overnight with around 2″ of rain locally and up to 3.5″ in some surrounding counties but the maximum wind gusts were less than 35 MPH. Our whale-watching excursion was cancelled due to rough seas. The locals were happy to get the rains – they really needed it around here.
Who here has actually lived through a hurricane? These storms are not to be taken lightly. Places on the east coast were rightfully evacuated. The problem with these monster storms is that it is impossible to predict its exact path. In 1996, I went to bed expecting Hurricane Fran’s center to come over me, instead it went much further west and where I lived did not get the brunt of the storm. Another problem with hurricanes is people forget that wind is not the only thing you have to worry about. In 1999, I went to bed expecting Hurricane Floyd to be like Hurricane Fran in that I was only expecting wind damage. When I woke up, I saw places underwater. I met people who said they only had time to save themselves and nothing else from the rising water. Hurricanes also spawn tornadoes.
Hindsight is always 20-20. The only people who say evacuations were unwarranted are people who have yet to live through a hurricane or people suffered financially because of a near miss. Those same people later on will be crying and wondering why they ignored the warnings. There is much uncertainty with hurricanes. Having lived through several, I know the evacuations were the right move to make.
Looks like so far the warmistas prediction of many fierce hurricanes this year is off.
Earlier today I ran into a small furry animal complaining that Hurricane Earl damaged its holiday business situated along the coast.
Funny if you think about nature, which shooed away all the holiday-goers who would have otherwise been driving up and down the US East coast emitting all that CO2. Funny how the furred creature did not appreciate the natural mitigation – the CO2 which has thus been sequestered in people’s car fuel tanks
Maybe 389.60 ppm is the ideal level of CO2 which creates numerous Earls every long weekend, which look menacing on radar but never make landfall. This reduces weekend and holiday CO2 emissions keeping CO2 at this ideal level which produces more Earls and so forth.
And note, since I thought up a “feedback loop”, I am therefore proven to be of superior intellect.
🙂
Hey its only a downgraded tropical storm dumping 1.71″ of rain in 48 hours. Come on down to the East Coast and party!
Come again?
RE: Wade says:
September 5, 2010 at 5:19 am
“…I know the evacuations were the right move to make.”
Sad to see you think so little of other people’s freedom.
What disgusted me most was Governor Patrick of Massachusetts milking the politics of the situation, turning it into a photo op, striding about with his tie off and his shirt sleeves rolled up, like he was going to single-handedly turn back the tide. Then, of course, there’s the itty bitty fact that, with Obama declaring a state-of-emergency as well, certain funding can flow directly into Massachusetts, just before an election. What’s a little money, fresh off the printing press, between chums?
The word “mandatory,” in the phrase “mandatory evacuation,” is opposed to the word “freedom.”
It assumes you are too stupid to listen to the actual forecasters and heed them, and make wise choices.
Wade, I think you’d be singing a different tune if the government began to speak of “mandatory” this and “mandatory” that, concerning writing a computer blog, or using certain computer programs, claiming “National Security” came before “Freedom of Speech.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am definitely an Alarmist, when it comes to being fearful of what a repeat of the 1938 hurricane would do.
For example, Boston skyscrapers are designed to withstand winds 125% of the highest wind recorded in Boston. I think the highest recorded wind, at the surface, was around 100 mph, during the 1978 blizzard. Therefore the skyscrapers are designed to withstand winds of 125 mph.
During the 1938 hurricane winds were only to 78mph, at the surface, in Boston. But up 500 feet? Atop the Blue Hills the winds gusted over 180 mph, and there was a sustained wind over 130 mph for something like five minutes.
I think the tops of some Boston skyscrapers poke up that high. Alarmed yet? No?Imagine windows blown out, glass flying, office desks and filing cabinets raining down on the buildings below. Were those lower buildings engineered to withstand office desks hitting them? What happens to windowless buildings when rain falling at five-inches-an-hour jets against the side at 100 mph? Waterfalls down stairwells, anyone? Alarmed now? Can the basement pumps keep up? What happens to the structural integrity of a skyscraper when the foundation floods. (If you’re not alarmed yet, I quit!)
I believe the public should be educated to what worst case scenarios might bring. However, once educated, people are better off when free to decide for themselves.
Or at least that is the attitude in Live-Free-Or-Die New Hampshire.
Any significance in the eastern track of this hurricane? Any corelation between similar tracked storms, and resulting winter weather patterns?
Ancient Mariner says:
September 5, 2010 at 4:04 am
“To criticise the use of the term ‘Hurricane Force’ gusts solely on the basis that “The threshold for hurricane winds is when the 1-minute sustained winds equal or exceed 74 miles per hour.” is somewhat disingenuous”
Definitions of hurricanes are tied to building codes and disaster planning. A tropical storm gusting to hurricane force doesn’t tie to the common usage Safir-Simpson scale.
In some small communities the person in charge of ‘disaster response’ may be the head of the volunteer fire department. Using less then the exact definitions isn’t particularly helpful. Does the head of the volunteer fire department know whether of not the disaster response plan for a tropical storm already takes into account that winds may gust to hurricane force? Or does he implement the Cat I hurricane disaster response plan?
Caleb {September 5, 2010 at 2:23 am}…A Cat. 4 or 5 lawyer is not to be played with…
Lived through 3 hurricanes, eye over the house, all within 15 mo’s, in Jupiter, FL. Extremely scary and very dangerous. That said, I believe NHC can do a better job of advising the public of storm intensity forecasts. Go back and actually read the NHC “Discussion” element on its public website. These descriptions form the basis of media coverage of each tropical storm/cyclone as it develops. The storm track stuff is very good. NHC has mastered this part of the science, IMHO. But the storm intensity analysis seems to always error on the high side. Thus causing higher ground level windspeed estimates throughout the forecast period. A few mph gets the category designation from ‘tropical storm’ to ‘hurricane’ early in the storm’s history. As it progresses, NHC continues its habit of estimating intensity ‘on the high side’, or ‘a generous reading ‘ of intensity data, as the staff likes to say in their public dicussions. Again, a few mph moves the category designation ever upward. That’s all the media needs. Their scare mongering terrorizes goverment officials and mandatory evacuation is ordered, followed up with the boot-jack boys always alertly on the lookout for a freespirit to beat into submission. In short, NHC needs better, more straight-forward people to both formulate and write the ‘discussion’ element of their forecasts. A team approach would be much better that the apparent single forecaster approach used by NHC. (See Discussion section of forecast; only one name appears.Most are extremely poor writers, which is unconscienable, given the significance of their reports.) More honest detail is required, with better description of intensity issues so local goverments have better information before closing businesses, ordering extensive evacuations, and sending the dogs of war out on the streets to roundup the freespirits ‘for their own good’.
More calamity, massive storms, Global Warming is real we tell yuh. CBC is desperate for some kind of affirmation from mother nature, if she does not come thro soon they might have to drop the cult and … sorry what were the 5 stages again? Note the desperation of the reporting, Earl was constantly refferred to as a hurricane long after it dropped to a tropical storm. CBC is a waste of a billion dollars of tax payer money every year.
Remote Reporter: ” Tiffany, I’m here on Shelter Island, and we’re reporting that Hurricane Earl is producing house-flattening winds, a fifty-foot storm surge, and hail the size of watermelons!”
Anchor: “My God, Tom, you’ve actually seen all that devastation?”
Reporter: “Well, no, Tiffany, but that’s what we’re reporting.”
Apologies to “South Park”.
Ralph says:
September 5, 2010 at 8:43 am
Any significance in the eastern track of this hurricane? Any corelation between similar tracked storms, and resulting winter weather patterns?
That’s what I would like to know. Seems to me that the hurricane was attracted to the Anomaly rather than the Absolute.
It hooked and swung towards Newfoundland/Greenland, where the waters are most assuredly colder than the Gulf, but relatively warmer than normal.
Can we learn something here, or are we whistling in the MSM wind?
I have lived through three hurricanes. Their names were Carla, Alicia and Ike. Thrown in amonst them were a dozen or so tropical storms, near misses and tornado outbreaks. It was Carla that introduced a Houston local newsman, standing out in the blowing rain, to the network audience. He later became a network news anchor. Reporters all over the Gulf coast, and I suspect the Atlantic, take hurricanes as their chance at glory. They fight to find dramatic backdrops and water to stand in for their breathless “on-the-scene” reports, hoping for that network gig. I call it the “Dan Rather Effect”- for that then-unknown Carla reporter.
The bottom line is if someone in authority tells you to evacuate for high water, you should. Otherwise, stay home and hide from the wind. Rita caused a great big traffic jam-panic around here when people, scared by the headlines, evacuated without any call to. The storm missed us, pretty much.
In New Orleans (much of it below sea level and surrounded by a lake and a river) they were told to evacuate and many did not. The mayor and governer bear responsibility for that – which they successfully sloughed off on the Feds.
Expect no help from anybody for 4 days after the storm – you should have that much food and water stashed. Transportation will generally be crippled for that long. Debris on the road (like biillboards, truck trailers, upside down cars), traffic lights blown down, bridges and rails washed out, boats sunk in the channels, etc.
You are on your own after these things and if you were told to leave and didn’t, then you’ve done a very stupid thing.
Hurricanes can be very dangerous, and don’t always listen to the forecast tracks of the weather “experts.” Consequently, folks need to carefully monitor forecasts and take reasonable precautions as storms, especially those as big and strong as Earl once was, approach. Often there will be less time than you need to evacuate or batten down the hatches. I recommend avoiding the reporting of major news outlets, since they tend to border on the hysterical. Even some private professional services tend to overhype. Dr. Jeff Masters, whose Weather Underground site offers great technical information, often let’s his AGW bias show in the blog that accompanies the models, etc. It’s not uncommon for Dr. Masters to blog about how a storm is going to “roar” into a location, or focus on the “potential for catastrophic destruction.” Joe Bastardi on Accuweather similarly seems to lose objectivity when major storms threaten. His forecasting seems routinely biased to predictions of storm strengths and paths that could cause the most damage. As an example, in 2005, Mr. Bastardi continually insisted Hurricane Rita would shift west and go up the Houston/Galveston I-45 corridor resulting in the greatest hurricane disaster in North American history. His recent Earl comments seemed, at least to me, a bit histrionic as well, as he kept predicting Cat 5 status even as Earl began to wind down. For my money, people should monitor the National Weather Service’s Tropical prediction center for what appears to be the most dispassionate reporting on storms. The TPC gives folks more than enough info to make rational decisions in reponse to a storm’s approach, while avoiding the hype.
To Caleb and his worries about the effect of hurricane force winds on skyscapers, I would suggest reading up on Hurricane Alicia in Houston in August 1983. That storm broke the windows out of half a dozen or so skyscapers on Houston’s Louisiana St. While the resulting mess was enormous (the glass in the street was a meter deep in some places), the buildings did not suffer structural damage either from the wind or rain infiltration. I think this is a good real world example of the strength of these types of buildings.
I thought up another reason to be an utterly freaked out Alarmist, concerning a repeat of the 1938 hurricane.
The 1938 hurricane actually zipped up the Connecticut River. The Connecticut River is roughly ninety miles west of Boston. Therefore we only need shift the track of the hurricane around seventy miles east to bring the eyewall right over Boston. This will also keep the hurricane further out to sea and more over the warm gulf stream, as it charges up the coast.
Now we’re talking some real wind, funneling between the sky scrapers. (Remember, those buildings didn’t exist in 1938.)
Another thing that didn’t exist in 1938 was Boston’s underground system of tunnels known as “The Big Dig.” Anyone who has lived around Boston the past thirty years knows those tunnels are a complete embarrassment, and an example of corruption gone berserk. It is truly frightening to think of how much of the Big Dig’s cement used sub-standard ingredients, (while the American tax-payer was charged for cement of the highest quality.) Even in fair weather a chunk of the roof fell and killed a passenger in a car, (fortunately it fell at 2:00 AM and not at rush hour.) Also the tunnel leaks so badly the pumps are running at full blast just to keep it dry.
Now, just for the sake of panic and hysteria, let us bring a storm surge of fifteen to twenty feet into Boston Harbor, such as occurred during the Saxby Gale or The Great Colonial Hurricane. How much extra weight does all that water press down onto the roof of the Big Dig? What are the odds the roof collapses, or the pumps give out (especially if the power goes out and the pumps are running on back-up generators)??? Want to wait in the tunnel, to see?
Actually, if Governor Patrick really cared, he would have evacuated all the skyscrapers and closed all the tunnels, rather than strutting and preening in front of TV cameras. He would have appeared on TV with his eyes bulging and screamed, “Run! Run for your lives!!!”
That’s what I would do, if I was governor, and a full-time Alarmist. Fortunately, I’m only a part-time Alarmist, for the fun of it, on weekends. Also I’m not governor of Massachusetts, which is very fortunate for me.
I never cease to be amazed at how the media pushes the worst case scenerios. One national weathercaster routinely shows the outlier track predictions-in this case showing Earl heading directly for the Carolina coast. When Earl briefly showed sustained winds of 145 MPH, I heard him say “Only five more miles per hour and it will be a Category V storm!” One almost gets the impression that they are lusting for another Coastal weather disaster.
G.
Disaster sells. Watch the storm with some caution but only after there is a real threat start talking about once a century events.
Ralph says:
September 5, 2010 at 8:43 am
> Any significance in the eastern track of this hurricane? Any correlation between similar tracked storms, and resulting winter weather patterns?
I don’t think so, Earl’s track was pretty much “normal” (however that should be defined). Many more storms have tracked east, but that’s simply because a lot of storms that would have tracked to the west lost tropical cyclone status due to their inland route.
As for correlation with the upcoming winter, there probably isn’t too much. Given that there was a hurricane, that suggests a warm AMO and no El Niño, and those have implications for the winter, but I don’t know offhand of any rules of thumb between hurricanes and the upcoming winter.
People living in target areas need to be responsible for keeping an eye on the hurrican and not be totally dependent of any media. When Opal was approach our coast they over estimated the amount of time that it would take to hit. There was a paniced evacuation of the island and coastal areas and Eglin AFB d*mn near lost their airplanes. One of my co-workers was caught on an overpass in a massive traffic jam and ended up stuck there for the entire duration – along with her two kids and dog. Never EVER depend 100% on what the forecasters are saying. Keep situtational awarness and trust your own instincts.
To Caleb @ur momisugly September 5, 2010 at 7:02 am:
There is much unpredictability with hurricanes. For example, take Hurricane Floyd which caused massive flooding in eastern North Carolina, especially on the Tar-Pamlico River basin, which is where I live. Hurricane Floyd was originally forecast to strike around Daytona Beach, Florida. The people in Florida evacuated. My aunt’s husband’s parents came from Florida to North Carolina to escape the storm. Yet the storm did not make landfall in Florida. It made landfall near Wilmington, NC.
The point is this: nobody knows with absolute certainty what these things are going to do. Forecasts are much better today than in 1999 when the original landfall forecast was off by several hundred miles. But tropical cyclones can and do make abrupt changes that cannot be predicted. If Earl was just 25 miles to the west, there are many things that would have been different. There are many variables that cannot be accounted for. Hurricanes have can weaken and strengthen at times that cannot be predicted. And yet you are suggesting that people should throw caution to the wind because of freedom! Well, lets get rid of tsunami warnings because most of those are false alarms too. How dare we limit the freedom of people by telling them of potential danger! I guess those laws which ban texting and driving at the same time are also a bad idea because they limit freedom.
Please understand that when lives are at stake, it is better to err on the side of caution. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. This is different than the constant cries of man-made global warming because, unlike AGW, hurricanes have decades of observable and provable data behind them. A hurricane can have more power than a nuclear bomb, we should also treat them with respect.
Phil Nizialek says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:13 pm
============================
Excellent post. And a razor-sharp intellect.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I’ll gladly trade a week of warnings for two days without electricity. Earl pretty much tracked past southern New England as predicted, going a few miles more east as a cold front helped it move along. It was the intensity prediction that was less accurate and stronger than what actually occurred.
Of course, if you take your forecast mainly from the media – what do you expect then ?
A media is only there to put up news, events. If there’s no event, then there’s no news. And when they don’t have news to show, then they build one with ”if”s.
Still, if you took your forecast from the NWS, and Earl’s situation from the NHC, then you knew it was going elsewhere. Next time, stick with the NWS and NHC – they knew there was no news beside some coastal areas (that’s where they’ve raised warnings, not inland).