The Hurricane Season ( a rehash of what I have had so far)
By Joe Bastardi, WeatherBell
I see Dr Mann has a forecast out for 16 storms plus or minus 4, NOAA is out with theirs tomorrow. It is interesting to note that my friend, competitor ( he is a consultant for a rival company) and PSU 78 MASTERS in meteorology, Paul Knight and I share the same disdain for the silly overall number games. And a range of 8 for a total of 16 is a pretty big spread. Since it is a game I must play to keep people happy, please keep in mind for over 2 months now I have had 13-15 out with 6 or 7 landfalls…this year the impact will be from actually storms hitting with analog seasons of 1950,1955,1996,1999,2008. This still has not changed. It is later than the 2010 forecast for 17 which came out on Feb 14.. this year I didnt put it out till March. In any case in the race to say who said what and when, whatever happens, I have not changed yet from the 14 plus or minus 1.( 13-15)
Oh by the way, I saw what Dr Manns group is up too as he was nice enough to share it with me last year, and I have no beef with it. I just want to make sure that since it got some press, that we logged the date that forecast went public, and note the numbers and the ranges. But again, its very unlikely to have that big a range and not have the total number fall in. Last year I believe they had 23, plus or minus 5, and of course 19 is within that range. So it was there.
Technically I was wrong last year… with 17 from Feb, plus or minus 1, there were 19. So my center point missed by 2, theirs missed by 4. But in the wonderful world of academia and statistics, I was wrong, they are right. However in the world that I work in, classroom scoring is not always optimum.
But there is not much to argue about. Interestingly enough a forecast of 16 plus or minus 4 can claim a hit if there are 12, but I cant, even though I have 14. So I can be closer, yet be wrong! More wonderful statistics, eh? My personal opinion is that spreading numbers out that much is really not what I am comfortable doing. Ce le vie.. live and let live.. Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, but it’s not for me.
Yah I know it gets me in trouble, cause it makes me sound pompous, but I just dont like the whole number thing. My pursuit is landfall impact!!!! Still I have to give a number and it was out in March and for now, remains at 14 ( +/-1) ( 9 Hurricanes, 4 or 5 majors). But its the landfall that is the big deal to me. 07 and 10 burned me in similar ways, but people forget the non seasons forecasted in 06 and 09 for the gulf, the great forecasts in 08 and 03-05. I do believe that the error I had last year will, like 2008, lead to the much better forecast this year. There is a 10 page power point presentation I have with research and ideas that will knock your socks off, things I havent seen anywhere, and ideas I am sure will draw the ire of the crowd that are making sure anything I do wrong is shown loudly and clearly. But in the end, I am as confident going into this season as I was in 2008 for that type of year.
In hindsight, my mistake last year was simply taking the mean of what the high number should produce as far as impact, rather than digging in and seeing how close 2010
was to 2007.. from the previous nino to the nina, to the temp pattern in the heart of the hurricane season. Not this year.
When you see this foreacst, you will know, right or wrong, I did my homework. As for last year Again, give Hermine 12 more hours and a track 100 miles further east, its a big hit right into the coastal bend of Texas and Alex at 947 mb, the strongest June storm on record with Audrey, 75 miles north and earl 75 miles west and alot of the screams of too much hype would not be there. However there is a physical reason for the divergent tracks, just as when you see the DETAILS of the hurricane ideas here and how much more is put into this, you will see my physical reasoning for coming up with the year I have, as far as the enhanced threat on the US coast.
But in the terms of the number game, its 14 I came out with a couple of months ago, and that is where I stand. It’s not last year…and there are big ticket factors that will lead to the US coast being impacted quite a bit this year.
Thanks for reading, ciao for now.
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Predicting total numbers just turn this into a game. Tell me the probability of my 100 miles of coastline being struck this year so I can appropriately react to the risks.
That is a great post Joe and I appreciate your courage to make a prediction that has meaning. My question is, when can we see the “10 page power point presentation I have with research and ideas that will knock your socks off?”
The total number doesn’t bother me. But I saw an interview with you a few weeks ago where you predicted that we would see more U.S. landfalls this year. Yuck.
So, how many media predictions are we going to have that a hurricane will hit New York this year?
Joe! Welcome back! Will you be doing a European/British weather forecast as you did before? Do hope so…
I predict 20 +/-20 big swirling cloudy windy rainy dangerous possibly tornado spawning weather systems in the Atlantic basin. 20 +/-20 of them will blow leaves off of trees. And my prediction is good for next year also. There, beat that. Now, let’s keep careful score and see if I am right.
I predict (if we have a football season) that the Denver Broncos will win 8 games, plus or minus 4.
I love Joe Bastardi…
With this kind of game, it is right enough and tight enough to be wrong 50% of the time.
With a wide spread it is too easy to be right all the time, but a spread of +/- 1 shows that you care about being tight as well.
Joe,
How about a link to the PowerPoint presentation you mentioned. I’m sure many beside myself would be interested.
w^3
Is there a derby for this, like sea ice?
Mann and Kozar 18.86 +/- 4.3
NOAA 15 +/-3
Bastardi 14 +/-1
When scientists give a +/- range it usually means that based on some calculations, they are 95% confident that the true answer will be in that range. They could easily give a more narrow range if they wanted to be only 90% or 80% or 70% confident, there are formulas to do that.
When non scientists like Bastardi give a +/- range, I do not know what it means to them. The wideness or narrowness of a range is no information by itself without saying what it means.
So Joe failed to be 4X as accurate as NOAA?
Overall, I’d say the value of the forecasts is proportional to the inverse square of the standard deviation. Which makes his 16X theirs.
Credibility is foremost to any forecaster. This includes credibility in the quality of forecasts (we want to be accurate) as well as credibility when evaluating the quality of forecasts (we must acknowledge both successes and failures).
I know Joe and consider him a friend. But I have to comment on the excerpt below, taken from his 2011 seasonal hurricane forecast, looking back on past seasons:
“But its the landfall that is the big deal to me. 07 and 10 burned me in similar ways, but people forget the non seasons forecasted in 06 and 09 for the gulf, the great forecasts in 08 and 03-05”
After reading this you would think the 06 landfall forecast was pretty good, but we just don’t remember “the non-season forecasted in 06 for the gulf.” Perhaps we don’t remember because that forecast was forgettable, arguably one of the worst ever issued. Here’s that 2006 hurricane landfall forecast in graphical form:
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/images/promos/hurr2006/hurrisk.jpg
According to Joe, “the big deal” is the forecast of 5 hurricane landfalls, 3 of them major. Actual: 0 and 0. End of story. By nearly any reasonable metric, a huge bust.
The interpretation of the 06 forecast presented here by Joe is not an isolated oversight. The same spin on the 06 forecast was used in the write-up for the 2007 Accuweather seasonal hurricane forecast (see http://wx-man.com/blog/?p=608).
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not criticizing the quality of the forecast or suggesting that I could do better. But putting the 06 forecast in this light reeks of disingenuousness and undermines credibility.