Should Irene have been downgraded sooner?
Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington and a popular blogger asks, “When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane?”
” … there is really no reliable evidence of hurricane-force winds at any time the storm was approaching North Carolina or moving up the East Coast.”
“I took a look at all the observations over Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Not one National Weather Service or FAA observation location, not one buoy observations, none reach the requisite wind speed. Most were not even close.’
Cliff makes a clear, systematic and convincing argument that Irene should have been downgraded from a hurricane before it made landfall.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-did-irene-stop-being-hurricane.html
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This is backed up by my observations here of surface windspeeds as Irene passed through North Carolina. While not at the 10 meter height, they still seem much lower than they should be.
h/t to WUWT reader “speed”
Fox — August 29, 2011:
“Bill Nye the Global Warming Guy”
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1134689231001/bill-nye-the-global-warming-guy/
This thing threw all kinds of curve balls. Witness the surge in CT. That was, to me, unexpected. Meanwhile, NC fared quite well versus what was expected.
The bright side of the storm not living up to the hype is that millions of people now have first hand experience of how the media exaggerates every potential threat. Maybe a few more will connect that over-hype tendency with CAGW.
John from CA says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:17 pm
To be fair, the clip is Bill Nye explaining what he thought Al Gore meant by the racism analogy. The use of dogs was pretty effective. ; )
So….. if there are 40,000 traffic fatalities in the US in a year, prorating that over 2 days and the Altantic states…. it would appear that hurricane Irene actually SAVED lives. I am sure that the number of people travelling on highways was severly curtailed because of the hurricane, and thus those highway fatalities took a major downwards spike….. so, Irene actually saved lives. No?
John from CA says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:47 pm
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Sorry, I haven’t found the clip with Joe B yet but this one is interesting.
August 29, 2011
The Great Storm of 2011
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html
Guys, I thought there might be some bureaucratic distinction between a hurricane and a Big Wet Storm. Apparently not.
As most on these threads know, honesty about uncertainty is the major shortcoming of the science/media community today. It cannot be streesed enough that while we are very good at forecasting the track of a storm, we do not have sufficient ability to forecast the landfall strength of a hurricane.
It is prudent to have folks in low lying areas evacuate well in advance of any hurricane. If a weak strom is predicted and folks sit tight, a storm that suddenly strengthens prior to landfall could cause loss of life. There is not enough room on the higway to evacuate low lying cities on the Eastern Seaboard in less than 36 hours, so the best experts will err on the side of caution and order an evacuation a couple of days in advance if there is any possibility of strengthening. Science and media should be quite clear about the uncertainty, while stressing the ramifications of sitting out a storm which may turn ugly. That establishes the public trust for the next storm. Otherwise folks will ignore future warnings like they now ignore Al Gore.
I chuckle whenerver I hear someone in a low coastal area say they will stay to “protect their property”. If you cannot afford to either insure or lose your property, you do not belong on the coast. Very few folks on the Eastern Seaboard have seen firsthand what a storm surge can do. Debris carried by a modest 5 foot storm surge is like a bulldozer, knocking down anything in its path. It’s very similar to what you have seen in the Japan Tsunami videos. How is a person going to protect his home from that? The answer is he cannot. There is no logical reason to stay unless one wants to risk losing the entire universe (aka life itself) along with his home.
Don’t forget that the wind speeds should be higher on the east and lower on the west side of Irene because of the 14MPH northward velocity of the eye. Places on the east should have had sustained windspeeds over 88MPH if Irene was a hurricane.
I think a story broadcast yesterday by the ABC in Australia is relevant in the context of the media’s Irene coverage, if only because I’m still chuckling about it …
Climate change linked to mental health problems
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-29/climate-change-linked-to-mental-health-problems/2860150
The totally credible, unbiased Australian Climate Institute has issued a report that “draws a direct link between inaction on climate change and long-term social and mental health problems”.
It seems there’ll be far more depression, suicide, anxiety, substance abuse and general community stress, while “continuing catastrophic weather events are creating anxiety and insecurity for children at levels not seen since the Cold War”.
From which we must assume that as they huddled in their caves, mud huts, wooden houses or whatever primitive shelter they could find, previous generations weren’t in the least bit stressed about surviving their droughts, cyclones, floods, storms and other climate events that dwarfed what we’ve seen recently.
And all of this psychological turmoil is happening because of CO2, not the media, right? If the Climate Institute is correct, I’d say more people are dying from stress-related illnesses caused by believing the media than are dying from climate change itself.
My advice to anybody suffering climate change depression … turn the TV off, go outside and get a bit of sunshine.
John from CA says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Fox — August 29, 2011:
“Bill Nye the Global Warming Guy”
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1134689231001/bill-nye-the-global-warming-guy/
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Ha ha, I could only stand watching it until 2:30, but it sure looked to me like Bill Nye the turd-rate science guy got his ass handed to him – by a news reporter.
Hey, but his Mom thinks he’s a real scientist, I’m sure.
The bottom line is…we do not know what this tropical cyclone or that…will bring.
Ike was well forecasted as a “2” but yet had also the well-forecasted disastrous storm surge of a “4” that completely leveled the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas.
They were using the Integrated Kinetic Energy measurement, or the (ironically) the I.K.E. in terrajoules.
The problem when you get to higher latitudes is that you have to deal with cooler waters and frontogenic forcing which caused the real problem with Irene.
She totally lost her tropical characteristics when she approached NC and began behaving like a really bad bad nor’easter.
The real threat to the Mid Atlantic…someday…will be a TRUE tropical cyclone in all its fury.
It will happen. But could be days…weeks….or decades.
In the meantime….the “nanny state” weather warnings from Big Brother Bloomberg and Christie and others sadly like them….run the risk of crying some significant wolf.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Considering I didn’t have power for 50 hours and a 150 year old oak tree flat on the ground I think you guys need to SHUT THE FU#$ UP!!! I live 75 miles from the ocean (more than 80 from the track) and we had >40 mph sustained winds for more than 10 hours and gusts exceeding 70 mph and it rained steadily for almost 24 hours. Irene was a ligit storm for NC and VA.
steve salter says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:32 pm
So….. if there are 40,000 traffic fatalities in the US in a year, prorating that over 2 days and the Altantic states…. it would appear that hurricane Irene actually SAVED lives. I am sure that the number of people travelling on highways was severly curtailed because of the hurricane, and thus those highway fatalities took a major downwards spike….. so, Irene actually saved lives. No?
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Well, if you go on the basis of 2009 stats — 33,808 fatalities and 11 deaths per 100k — it would appear that way if you were correct in the belief that that 60 million people stopped driving for 2 full days. (Thirty seven storm related deaths, last I heard, versus 36 traffic fatality deaths saved.)
Then again how many more people were driving than normal in preparation for or to escape the path of the storm. For that, I suppose, it would be better to use the deaths per million miles traveled.
Appearances can be deceiving.
savethesharks says:
August 29, 2011 at 7:37 pm
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Chris, I think Christie cried wolf, and it was only a coyote that showed up, but it was actually a pretty nasty coyote in some neighborhoods (re. flooding mostly).
I don’t think his directions were climate disruption BS. I’m hugely glad he made people I know there sit up and take notice in advance.
That is a damning assertion…. Which leaves one to wonder about the purpose of the report: to alert the public or satisfy some narrow drop sonde technical requirement?
Theo Goodwin says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:51 pm
[to Dr. Maue]
You and your colleagues have to get together and decide what the facts of a hurricane are, at least the facts that are relevant to hurricane decisions by ordinary people. Once you have done that, then you can educate the public about the meaning of hurricane warnings.
In addition, being an intelligent citizen of American culture you know that it is a culture tortured by hype. You have a duty to fight the impulse to hype. Hype is evil even in the rare case that it accidentally saves lives. It is evil because it gives folks false beliefs about the world.
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Yeah come out of your blog ivory towers, “Theo” and talk about that “hype” to the citizens of Joplin MO.
Why don’t you discuss that hype with them…or perhaps the citizens of Tuscaloosa?
On the other hand, the complete opposite of the quote unquote hype is evil [to use your words], on the other hand makes people complacent and non-reactive.
Sort of like Galveston, 1900.
And don’t [for a freaking minute in time] do not think that the Rita worst case scenario could not have occurred in one of the biggest GDPs on the planet, the republic of Texas.
Rita chose to vent her fury on the easternmost parts of TX / LA but it was extraordinarily bad ALA Audrey and worse.
Houston with all its many many millions, could have been ground zero.
Now, in light of all that…..just WHOM is engaging in hype here?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
To those that would believe the alarm is justified because of the “better safe than sorry” posit.
It is true, better safe than sorry. But there is a point of diminishing returns. Every time there are warnings as such, there is a cost. Always. Today, I know FEMA was despairing because they’ve no money. Why don’t they have money to manage emergencies? Does it have anything to do with the constant paralysis of America every time there is a noise? How much did it cost? We’ll never know, but what we do know is that FEMA didn’t gain any funds last weekend. We shut down the entire eastern board for how many days? And they don’t have any money to help? I can’t figure it out?
Simple explanation.
The reported figures were from aircraft. From station data it was just wet blow.
This poses many problems as well as leading to inconsistent datasets, again.
I think a good question is how much experience we have of forecasting based on aircraft only data? At one time we would have had little or no idea it had an eye offshore.
The low pressure of 950 mb was mentioned. However do we not need at least two components to be able to deduce a projected wind speed? My understanding is that the closeness of isobars indicates how fast the winds will blow. So having 950 mb at the center and 1000 mb 50 miles away will have a vastly different effect on wind than having 950 mb at the center and 1000 mb 500 miles away. As we we know, Irene was huge. Is it possible this hugeness made the 950 mb reading less relevant?
I live in Nevada, so I really don’t care what happens on the East Coast. However, Irene had an impact on me personnally. She made her first landfall in Humacao about 20 miles SW of where my boat lies at anchor.and on a mooring ball. In that bay in Eastern Puerto Rico, Irene sunk two boats in slips, and broke the anchor line of another sailboat which ended in the mangrove and mud at the end of the bay, my boat walked its mooring anchor concrete about 75 feet North where it was perceived as a threat by other boat owners. I have spent the last several days rectifying this situation. Irene was a big and powerful storm in this area.. As I flew down here a few days ago, I saw widespread destruction in the Bahamas. Granted I was viewing this from 35,000 feet but I could read the signs of wind and water well enough Those poor people will spend weeks or months getting their lives back together if they ever do..
Hurricanes are not to be trivalized. I don’t watch tv especially the weather channel. I do follow the NHC information on the Internet. Although I think NOAA is leaning on the NHC to produce more storms in order to better hit NOAA projections. Consider this year, we have had 9 little things plus Irene so far. I give little credence to the GCM’s which tend to produce amazing amounts of destruction always 10 days in the future but I follow their reports and the coordinates of CV storms as they begin to cross the Atlantic as these are real events that I must consider seriously. All I can say is “thank God Irene was slow to develop”.
Have learned that Al Gore is right. When people are told about how such hurricane was caused by global warming, they really laugh at you and tell “stop it.”
Exactly as he described, well, a little bit different …
The Atlantic City Expressway was not and would not be underwater as it was intentionally built 9 ft above mean high tide.
Bill Beach days….
“Considering I didn’t have power for 50 hours and a 150 year old oak tree flat on the ground I think you guys need to SHUT THE FU#$ UP!!! I live 75 miles from the ocean (more than 80 from the track) and we had >40 mph sustained winds for more than 10 hours and gusts exceeding 70 mph and it rained steadily for almost 24 hours. Irene was a ligit storm for NC and VA.”
Well I was without power for 72 hours this past winter, hundreds of trees were downed in my neighborhood, along with dozens of power lines and poles. But it was heavy snow, not a hurricane, and neither, apparently was Irene. Doesn’t mean it’s not destructive, it most certainly was.
What is in question is people proclaiming Irene to be some sort of hurricane anomaly, never seen before, proof positive of global warming. The fact that they are so invested in their narrative that they cannot look at the facts objectively. I’ve seen articles claiming that New York was hit by a hurricane, only happened twice since 1821 don’t ya know.
There is a world of difference my friend of 40 mph and 125mph winds. Don’t trivialize it.
Regardless of wind speed, Irene will probably be listed as a land-falling hurricane from now on, thanks to the hype.
Last year in Australia, there was a big cyclone (Yasi). As it approached, almost every new bulletin gave its wind speed as 290-300 km/hr (180-190 mph), potentially catastrophic, maybe even the mythical “Category 6”. The figure, it seems, came from models. However, the highest wind speed actually recorded was 180 km/hr, (about 110 mph), an order of magnitude less damaging.
Nevertheless, Yasi is still officially graded as Category 5, and called as one of the most severe ever to hit the continent (and, as such, useful evidence of climate change). Once again, computer projections trump real-world observation.