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”
“The Atlantic City Expressway was not and would not be underwater as it was intentionally built 9 ft above mean high tide.”
When a hurricane nearing shore goes from cat 2 to cat 4, millions of people suddenly heading for the expressway would result first in a massive traffic jam. A cat 4 storm can carry a storm surge higer than 9 ft. Picture that.
I agree that attempting to counter global warming does not carry a good cost/benefit analysis.
I do not agree that evacuating low lying coastal areas for a few days is not worth the temporary cessation of economic activity. In fact, those who are wise enough to retreat tend to spend lots of money cleaning up the mess when they return. Those who stay to “protect their property” often take up residence in a much smaller slice of real estate known as Forest Lawn, and never spend another cent.
Here is another absurd one.
Obama called it an “historic” storm. Maybe we need Standard and Poor’s to start monitoring the weather.
The first hurricane I lived through was David in 1979, and it had already been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached New Jersey. That didnt make it seem less ferocious. But back then we didnt have meteorology infused with politics.
If I recall correctly, it was Lawton Chiles, governor or Florida, who tried to blame George H.W. Bush for Chiles lack of preparation. Nagin and Blanco stole Chiles’ playbook. I read the entire National Response Plan and it was clear that local authorities were the first responders to all disasters.
Here is what Canadians in British Columbia are paying for:
http://www.pics.uvic.ca/assets/pdf/news/MR_Short_Courses_29August2011.pdf
The level is truly pathetic!
Hurricane Andrew 1992 wasn’t officially changed to a category 5 until 2004. Maybe Irene will be downgraded at future date.
Hurricane Mitch came ashore as a minimial category 1 in Honduras 1998 and was the deadliest Atlantic Storm since at least 1780, possibly deadliest Atlantic Hurricane of all time. Around 20,000 died.
So how do you rate Hurricane/T.S.’s? Deaths/Property Damage/Size of area affected/wind speed/pressure/storm surge/flooding
Because it would have embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg (IMO).
(Bus lines needn’t have been completely shut down to begin with.)
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I don’t think we critics of the NHC are implicitly calling for less “alarm” on the part of the public. The public could have been warned repeatedly by the media that a large tropical storm will drop lots of rain, leading to flooding, and that its winds can drop lots of trees, particularly since there’s been no similarly large windstorms for years, meaning that weak, vulnerable trees near power lines haven’t been thinned. There could be an in-depth explanation of why evacuation is a good policy, even if ones home isn’t vulnerable to flooding or tree-fall: because electricity and phone service can be lost for many days, causing a crisis situation in isolated homes if emergency service (e.g., medical, fire) is needed by them.
There is plenty of time available on the media for this sort of educational material. I suggest the government prepare a half-hour educational video for TV stations–and make it available on the Internet as well. (It should contain hints that local power companies should thin trees near their power lines as routine maintenance.)
But it’s very bad for just-the-facts reporters like the NHC to spin their reporting even slightly in order to produce these desired effects, due to the loss of credibility that can result, not just among the public (the crying-wolf effect) but among people who are suspicious of what the government has to say. It gives them a case-study with which to convince others that official predictions and “facts” aren’t trustworthy, but are mostly propaganda.
I think the NHC put its thumb on the scale just before and after landfall in NC:
Shortly before landfall, it predicted it would occur as a Category 2 storm, when it barely qualified as a Category 1.
Just after landfall, it claimed that hurricane force winds (of 75 MPH, maximum) extended for hundreds of miles, when the number couldn’t have been more than half that.
And it predicted at that time that Irene would still be a hurricane as it progressed far to the north–i.e., to NJ, NY, and NE.
It should have been impartial about reporting such matters, regardless of what it perceived their public impact to be (complacency) and regardless of how much it would have made their previous predictions look bad. In the long run, this would have been the better course. If it wanted to make the case for the public’s Taking Precautions, it should have done so in a separate section of its Advisories.
IMHO, keeping it as a “hurricane” during the storm was fine even if it didn’t technically meet that criteria so that the public realized it was a serious storm at that time. However, I also would suggest that all the data should now be looked at in retrospect & correct classification should be made for studies such as the ACE index or any other scientific study of tropical weather. Although I have not examined all the data it sure seems to be a case that Irene was a tropical storm not a hurricane for most if not all it’s life on the east cost
Just an little note to most people, the storm directly hit North Carolina and that was it until it ended up hitting around New York City. The rest of the time it was over the sea and this was where the truly large winds were at. Considering the fact that the winds in this storm were stronger on the eastern side (And rather weak especially on the Western side), the highest winds barely hit land at all if you look at the movement of the eye area.
So yes, of course the wind speeds on land did not match what the storm was actually doing. This is the result of mis-information from the media as much as anything else as they put people on camera who frankly had no business being on camera for this incident and those same people put out frankly disgusting words that scared and made people panic instead of being informative and teaching people what they would face honestly.
The politicians were no better. They attempted to guilt trip people who would not evacuate certain areas. These areas ended up not going under-water, so what do you all think is going to happen the next time a storm hits but is actually a real hurricane….?
I note this
http://imgur.com/Ln44y
If the hurricanes have a consistency in the shapes of their logarithmic spirals, then Irene is no exception.
http://homepages.woosh.co.nz/zanzibar/
I’d contend the hurricane spirals are not of golden mean proportion, but the basic idea of there existing a constant spiral shape throughout the universe is still correct. It isn’t fibonacci, but the Inverse Square Law may pertain.
I made this point earlier, when NOAA’s data couldn’t validate the storms’ status.
After discussing this with some friends who had been involved in governmental “mass casualty” planning, they admitted that even though it would be nice to use facts in managing potential crisis situations, the better good was served by using terminology that was perceived to be understood by the most common denominator to be of significantly important as to achieve the desired goals.
While beneficial in intent, this is still propogandic in design.
Click on the pics.
AGW aside, there were many cases when people got sued for not providing “strong enough warning”. I’m not surprised the situation went the other way and people rather go over the top.
What Category 4 storm landed in the North East? Category 3’s are next to non-existent in the NE. The AC Expressway has 6 lanes that all are converted west-board during an evacuation. It is enough to handle the local year round population. The tourists would likely leave early or stay in the Casinos which are designed to take a beating.
What you just stated is the typical broken Window fallacy and makes no economic sense. The Atlantic City casinos lost $40-45 million in revenue because of the hysteria. There should never be a mandatory evacuation as people should be able to make this decision themselves. I am disappointed in Gov. Christie.
It was a manufactured crisis, planned and scripted in advance to provide photo-ops of Obama “on the spot, taking command”. The New Yorkers in Mr.V’s video above don’t seem at all shocked; it’s practically business as usual. I love it when a bike rider calmly pedals by as the reporter is making like he can hardly stand up in the wind. Ever ride a bike in a strong wind?
Hype/crying wolf kills. Consider Joplin.
Rain storm Irene was overhyped for political purposes, and the result will be greater loss of life the next time a real hurricane comes to shore.
Tropical storms can be very destructive, but hurricanes are not categorized by how much rain they produce, how “destructive” they are, or what some people forecast them to be. They are determined by sustained wind speeds of 74 MPH near the surface. Irene didn’t meet that criteria in the US and it is nonsensical to call her a hurricane.
The BBC only downgraded it to a tropical storm yesterday (Mon), shortly before the US downgraded it to a non-tropical storm. They can’t use any excuse about “making people think it was less serious”, either, because it wasn’t affecting the UK at all (until the cooled Gulf Stream reaches us … brrr). No, it was just another chance to pump up their GW alarmism.
They do realise if you keep screaming ‘Wolf’ but the sheep field is empty then people stop listening. That’s what the story is about and why the story is told so people don’t cry wolf all the time, it appears that man cannot learn.
And the adults have been trying to teach us kides for more then 500+ years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf
The difference is really simple. Irene was the Mother Of All Storms because it threatened Wall Street, the Center Of All Universes. An identical storm that caused six months of flooding in, let’s say North Dakota or Missouri, would get minimal media attention. Correction, DID get minimal media attention. Still flooding in Missouri, but you’ll never hear about it.
Wall Street exists. NOTHING ELSE exists.
One thing I noticed while looking at various blogs during the ‘hurricane’ landfall was this: lots of people were misreading the little icons on the WeatherUnderground maps. You know, those little musical note shape things with a number in the circle, a stem with little flags hanging off.
People were reading the numbers (e.g., 78 or 81) as wind speed! They of course are temperature. The little flags are obviously graphic shorthand for wind speed. I don’t know how many people got that wrong.
Now, would the alarmist media possibly screw that up also? I’ll bet money they did. After this fiasco I’m even wondering if hacks at NOAA and other agencies could also do the same.
One thing for sure, we can truly call this a political hurricane. And it is because of the destruction of the scientific community by the AGW cult. Someone above asked why does it matter if it was a hurricane or tropical storm? It matters because it is (was) a scientific distinction. Allowing this latest dumbing down of a specific scientific definition only can lead to greasing the skids to accepting the entire AGW hoax and all the attendant science fiction, no questions asked.
Ted Dooley’s got it. Calling it a hurricane gets everyone’s attention. We anchored our 36 foot trawler up Rondout Creek, near Kingston NY. it seemed a nice placid stream, good depth, excellent wind protection from adjacent cliffs, good holding. The marine charts stop about 3 miles west of the Hudson so we didn’t discover that this “creek” is the drain for an 1,100 square mile watershed conveyed to it by a RIVER and many other creeks. Rain was heavy, current increased from little to 6 knots, then later 10 after Irene had gone to Canada. We got out when current went past 6 knots because we wouldn’t have been able to pull our anchors in much more.
We would have been better off behind an island in the Hudson, but “hurricane” means WIND and we set up for wind. We were in Miami for Andrew, Tampa for the March 1993 “Storm of the Century” Miami for Floyd (not much excitement there) and NY for this thing.
The guys that understand these things may have been able to foresee that it wouldn’t reform and strengthen northbound from Virginia Beach, but at that point the evacuation commitments had been made, everyone who had given it any thought in its projected path had prepared and there was nothing to do but wait it out.
Given the media’s propensity to exaggerate, why is anyone surprised that they did here?
As Brian Williams so pithily stated in his remarks on the passing of the inventor of the teleprompter, “This invention can make a guy with a bag full of rocks for a head sound intelligent.”
Did anyone else see the shots of Cooper Anderson during Katrina arguing with his director that standing out in the wind was stupid.
I’m aware that the Atlantic City Expressway is well constructed. It’s probably the best road in South Jersey. Unfortunately it would only serve to evacuate a few towns, not a hundred miles of shore towns. If people had waited until the last moment to evacuate, then they would be dealing with choke point traffic jams, hazardous weather conditions, power failures and fuel shortages. The point is that they have to give “advance” warning of the storm, not wait until the day it hits.
Yes, the wind intensity wasn’t as strong as they predicted and it seemed that in an effort to drive ratings, certain channels were all but trying to “will” the storm to become a Category 4. However the storm was still very destructive and continues to be destructive days after it’s departure. In the end it will probably go into the record books for the damage it has caused.
BBC Lunchtime News declares that “Hurricane Irene” casued worst floods for 75 yerars & costs estimated to be $40billion!!!!!! Wow, same old same old:- http://climaterealists.com/?id=8271 Now there news for you:-)
Ok, I’m sorry. The reality is that I have been off topic. Was Irene still a hurricane when it made landfall? The data suggests that it was a tropical storm based upon the recorded sustained winds. Was Irene hyped by the media? Yes, it most definitely was, as almost every storm is hyped these days. Especially after having gone 3 years without a hurricane making landfall in the USA. It is all about the ratings. People love a disaster, when it happens to other people. In the EMS/Fire business we often call accidents and fires the “world’s greatest spectator sport.” Does it damage future credibility for when a large storm finally makes an appearance? Yes it does. People along the shore will remember that Irene wasn’t a big deal, and therefore there is no need to listen to the dire warnings.
Hurricane or not, Vermont and upstate NY got its ass kicked by this storm. Some amazing pictures coming out of there today. Luckily very few people live up in that bucolic area. Worst disaster to hit my part of PA was Tropical Storm Agnes (nee hurricane, although barely and way south in FLA) in 1972. Killed 129 people and was the most destructive hurricane to hit the US to that point, even though as noted, it was barely a hurricane by technical definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Agnes
There was a lot of hype, because anyone who lived in the NE for any amount of time knows that hurricanes/T.S. do come our way occasionally, and dump tons of rain. We also know that every once in a while they do severe damage and should not be taken lightly.