Brad Johnson's 'Frankenstorm' malfeasance masquerading as idiocy

Harsh headline, I know, but when you read what former Climate Progress propagandist Brad Johnson of the TV weathercaster pressure group “Forecast the Facts” has sent out in a press release late Friday regarding hurricane Sandy, you can only be left with one conclusion; he’s purposely anti-science and anti-factual wrapped up in a bought and paid for political wrapper.

This isn’t the first time he has claimed punishment from on high is retribution for not seeing climate issues his way, readers may recall he blamed conservative states for bringing tornadoes upon themselves by not acting on the climate issues he and his fellow propagandist, Joe Romm were pushing at the time. Three scientists, Kevin Trenberth, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt provided quotes to make that exercise in Tabloid Climatology™  complete.

Here’s his press release today, followed by a factual rebuttal. Bolding in the body of the PR is mine.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 26, 2012

CONTACT: Blair FitzGibbon : 202-503-6141 : blair@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Statement by Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts and ClimateSilence.org:

“If the candidates won’t listen to the voters demanding they break their climate silence, maybe they will listen to Mother Nature’s October Surprise. We know the candidates will be asked about Hurricane Sandy, and will express their sympathy with those affected. They will rightly applaud the first responders, the compassion of neighbors, and the strength and resolve of the American people. But what their role as national leaders demands that they also do is explain that Hurricane Sandy is a true Frankenstorm, a monster created by man tampering with nature with oil, coal, and gas pollution.”

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Lest you think this sort of logic affliction is unique to Brad Johnson, I’ll point out that his cheering section over at Grist says essentially the same thing in God’s latest warning:

Perhaps this weather scare that may well be much more than just a scare is God’s revenge for the refusal of the U.S. government to take action on the climate crisis. – Ted Glick

Can you imagine the howling from the left if some conservative evangelical said something like that? Whatever suits their purpose for the present I suppose is the new desperation dialog about climate.

The only way to deal with propagandic pinheads such as this is to counter with real facts, and then whenever his propaganda appears, put those facts right back into the venue wherever it appears through comments, emails, and letters. Clear headed people will understand, but you’ll never reach the science muggles that believe and push this sort of stuff while throwing facts to the wind.

By extension, Johnson and Glick’s claims are essentially that this Category 1 storm with 75MPH winds is somehow unique to American history, the result of “tampering” with “nature with oil, coal, and gas pollution.” And it hasn’t even made landfall yet. I don’t have to call BS on their idiotic claims, because the facts do it for me.

First, a historical review of October landfalling hurricanes. Data from the National Hurricane Center and Stormpulse.

OCTOBER HURRICANES MAKING LANDFALL IN THE USA

1852 Hurricane Season

	Name	Historic Name	Max Winds
	Hurricane #5	Middle Florida	100 MPH

That’s quite a list. From it you can conclude that strong October hurricanes hit the USA every few years, so Sandy is not in any way unique.

One storm in particular stands out as a parallel to Hurricane Sandy, and that’s Hurricane Hazel in 1954. Brad Johnson is of course too young to have any experience with it (and so am I) but unlike Johnson I pay attention to weather history rather than bloviate gloom and doom at the drop of  hat for political purposes.

Hurricane Hazel, October 12-18, 1954

NHC describes Hazel this way:

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Hazel was first spotted east of the Windward Islands on October 5. It moved through the islands later that day as a hurricane, then it moved westward over the southern Caribbean Sea through October 8. A slow turn to the north-northeast occurred from October 9-12, with Hazel crossing western Haiti as a hurricane on the 12th. The hurricane turned northward and crossed the southeastern Bahamas on the 13th, followed by a northwestward turn on the 14th. Hazel turned north and accelerated on October 15, making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane near the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Subsequent rapid motion over the next 12 hours took the storm from the coast across the eastern United States into southeastern Canada as it became extratropical.

High winds occurred over large portions of the eastern United States. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina reported a peak wind gust of 106 mph, and winds were estimated at 130 to 150 mph along the coast between Myrtle Beach and Cape Fear, North Carolina. Washington, DC reported 78 mph sustained winds, and peak gusts of over 90 mph occurred as far northward as inland New York state. A storm surge of up to 18 ft inundated portions of the North Carolina coast. Heavy rains of up to 11 inches occurred as far northward as Toronto, Canada resulting in severe flooding.

Hazel was responsible for 95 deaths and $281 million in damage in the United States, 100 deaths and $100 million in damage in Canada, and an estimated 400 to 1000 deaths in Haiti.

For an interactive map of Hurricane Hazel visit the NOAA Coastal Services Center.

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The National Weather Service in Raleigh, NC has a history page on Hazel that says this:

The already remarkable damage Hazel inflicted was exacerbated by the timing at which the hurricane struck. Landfall occurred during the full moon of October – the highest lunar tide of the year. A storm surge in excess of 15 feet inundated southeastern North Carolina from Southport to Topsail Beach, with an astounding 18-foot surge reported at high tide at Calabash and on the island of Holden Beach. Incredibly, all but 12 of the 300 cottages in Holden Beach were destroyed. The surge also leveled many of shrimp houses that lined the riverfront, and put coastal Brunswick and New Hanover counties under water, effectively wiping out the beaches. The surge even reopened Mary’s Inlet, which had been artificially closed during the summer of 1955 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Hazel’s Impact Felt Across the Eastern Seaboard and Southern Canada

A total of 15,000 homes or buildings were destroyed throughout the state, including some 39,000 damaged structures. Thousands of trees were downed by the combination of tropical-rain soaked ground and ferocious winds. 30 of North Carolina’s 100 counties sustained major damage. Based on reports from residents in the capital city of Raleigh, an average of two or three trees fell per city block, many on homes, automobiles, and power lines. In all, an estimated $136 million in damage occurred in North Carolina as a result of the mighty hurricane. Damage reached to nearly $281 million when the dollar damage in NC was combined with damage estimates from the rest of the United States. The storm went on to produce another $100 million in damage in Canada, as it accelerated northward and became extratropical. Most of the damage there resulted from heavy rain, nearly a foot in less than twenty four hours, associated with the remnants of Hazel. When all was said and done, the death toll included: 400-1000 in Haiti, 6 in the Bahamas, 95 in the US (including 19 deaths and 200 injured in North Carolina alone), and 100 more in Canada.

Hurricane Hazel produced the largest swath of hurricane force winds this century over Virginia and North Carolina. As active as the 1954 hurricane season was for North Carolinians, it was followed by an equally active 1955 hurricane season, when three more storms struck the state. However, none of those could match the fury of the historic Hurricane Hazel.

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Sound familiar? Just watch and read the news reports warning of the storm surge from Sandy, and you’ll see its just a repeat performance of lunar timing coincidence. Here’s one from NBC:

Full moon could make Sandy’s impact worse

Gravitational tugs could make high tides rise even more

Heaven and Earth may be aligning to turn Hurricane Sandy into a real monster, just in time for Halloween.

Forecasters expect Sandy to make landfall along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States on Monday or Tuesday. It may merge with a separate tempest hitting the region at about that time, creating an immensely powerful “Frankenstorm” whose effects could be magnified by the full moon.

When the moon waxes to its full phase Monday afternoon, high tides along the Eastern Seaboard will rise about 20 percent higher than normal, even without the help of Sandy’s storm surge, said Joe Rao, a meteorologist for News 12 in Westchester, N.Y. (Storm surges occur when a hurricane’s winds push the water surface above normal levels.)

Hazel had the same storm surge lunar magnifier, but the MSM is treating it as if this is something new and unique and there’s no mention of Hurricane Hazel in the NBC story.

And then there’s the New England Hurricane of 1938: (h/t to John Coleman)

The 1938 Hurricane, by the Works Project Administration – During this storm, Frank Schubert, last keeper of Coney Island Light, was aboard the buoy tender ship Tulip, which was thrown aground on top of some train tracks by the storm. Even Supermandia recognizes what an event that was.

Here’s the weather map for it from the US Weather Bureau:

All that happened before Roger Revelle took his first CO2 measurement and published a paper that started it all. Nothing has been seen like Hurricane Hazel since.

Let’s look at CO2 and hurricanes

Why? Because if paid political shills like Brad Johnson are to be believed, CO2 increases in Earth’s atmosphere are the cause of all this “frankenweather” happening now.

This scatterplot graph (by Steve Goddard) shows the relation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and landfalling US Hurricanes.

There is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 and major hurricanes striking the US.

The majority of landfalling US hurricanes occurred when CO2 was around 300 ppm, i.e., the 1950’s. Ambient CO2 is about 394 ppm right now according to the latest NOAA CO2 data.

That blows Brad Johnson’s political frankenpropaganda right out of the water.

Finally let’s look at hurricane related death rates from: Hurricane Fatalities, 1900–2010: Context in these Stormy Times (Aug 27th, 2011)

excerpt of Dr. Indur Goklany’s article:

Long term U.S. data on hurricane fatalities show that from 1900–09 to the 2009–10, hurricane deaths and death rates declined by 82% and 95%, respectively (see Figure 2).These estimates use data from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) provided in Blake et al. (2007) which has 1,525 deaths for 2005, the year of Katrina.

[Note that this month, the NHC, via Blake et al. (2011), put out a new report which has 1,225 deaths for 2005, while NWS’s Weather Fatalities website uses 1,016 for that year. I plan to keep on using the older NHC/Blake et al. estimate, pending consultation with Dr. Blake. I have contacted him, but to no one’s surprise, least of all mine, he has much more important things to do right now.]

Figure 2: U.S. hurricane deaths and death rates per year, 1900–2010. Sources: Updated from Goklany (2009), using USBC (2011) and NWS (2011). For 2005, this figure uses National Hurricane Center data from Blake et al. (2007), which has 1,525 deaths for that year, but Blake et al. (2011) has 1,225 deaths while NWS Weather Fatalities uses 1,016 deaths. This figure uses the Blake et al.’s older data, pending consultation with Dr. Blake. 

Conclusion

To any thinking person reading the above, clearly there’s no connection between Hurricane Sandy, atmospheric CO2 levels, or payback from God. It’s the worst example of climate propaganda since An Inconvenient Truth.

Don’t believe political shills like Brad Johnson as he doesn’t rely on facts, but rather, fear. That makes him and those like him that say Hurricane Sandy is some sort of “wrath” for human behavior he and his buddies don’t like not only unreliable and idiotic in their approach, but malfeasant to boot.

Call them on it wherever you see it.