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This was quite a circus to watch today. I didn’t bite.
Early this afternoon, AccuWeather reported the National Hurricane Center had announced they were modifying the definition of hurricane warnings becuase of Hurricane Sandy. They made a big deal out of it. Turns out that wasn’t quite right, read on.
Following the criticism of the National Hurricane Center’s handling of Hurricane Sandy and the non-issuance of hurricane warnings north of North Carolina, it has been decided that the NHC will now have more flexibility in their policy regarding the issuance of advisories. Beginning in 2013, the NHC will have the flexibility to issue multiple advisories on post-tropical cyclones for landfalling systems or close bypassers.
According to the NHC, this required a revision of the Hurricane Warning definition.
…
“The main issue is: we want people to get ready for hurricane conditions, and that’s why we are changing the definition of hurricane warning to be a little more inclusive of other things than just a hurricane,” Chris Landsea, Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center, told AccuWeather.com.
Playing follow the leader, The Weather Channel added a story that built upon the AccuWeather story. TWC wrote:
The National Hurricane Center confirmed Wednesday that changes to their system of issuing hurricane warnings will be altered prior to the start of the 2013 season. NOAA spokesperson Maureen O’Leary said changes to the warning system will be made, but said she was not able to comment further at the time.
A report issued at an annual NOAA hurricane meeting in Miami stated the NHC will now be able to issue a hurricane warning on a post-tropical cyclone.
But wait, not so fast! They haven’t actually made a rule change yet.
Seeing all the excitement, the In an emailed statement to many media outlets today, NOAA’s Chris Vaccaro indicated this change is not final but rather part of an ongoing process:
A proposal was raised during the NOAA Hurricane Conference last week for NWS to have the option to issue hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings for post-tropical cyclones that threaten life and property.
This is one step in the process required before any proposed change to operational products becomes final. As part of our review of the 2012 hurricane season, including the Sandy service assessment, we will review all policies and changes through the existing and established process.
This sort of reporting is just about what we’d expect.
I think some new categorization is a good idea, because some storms are big on winds, some are big on rain, some are big on storm surge, and some are big on all three. Getting a handle on these to truly rate storm effects would be better. In this case, Sandy happened to just hit a place that isn’t used to hurricanes on a regular basis, and it wasn’t strong enough to rate hurricane strength, so hurricane warnings were not issued. The fact that it was NYC put a microscope on it. If hit Florida, it would have been just another storm.
CCM Mike Smith talks about the warning issue on WUWT.TV here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu-6NIUNNw0
You can see some of the MSM playing follow the leader below….
Related articles
- Breaking: NHC Modifies Hurricane Warning Definition in Wake of Sandy (livescience.com)
- NHC Modifies Hurricane Warning Definition In Wake Of Sandy (huffingtonpost.com)
- National Hurricane Center re-defines the term hurricane warning (earthsky.org)
- Breaking News: NHC Modifies Hurricane Warning Definition in Wake of Sandy (paramuspost.com)
- Hurricane Warnings : A New Policy (wjla.com)
- Sandy forces change to hurricane warning definition (usatoday.com)
- National Hurricane Center to change alert system to include transitioning storms (sacbee.com)
Rather than give a clear description of the storm, as in the weather warnings we already have. The proposal is to add more verbiage?
Well its a tropical storm, quasi hurricane or another Sandy?
How about a Gore Event? Lots of wind and little substance.
Anybody who wasn’t aware of the destructive potential of this storm as broadcast on radio and television and posted endlessly on the internet is an idiot. Forgive me if I’m short on empathy here, but COME ON!!
The new warning should be “Winds High And Tidal Surge Up: Possibly Destructive Or Calamitous”. Of course known by its acronym.
I don’t live anywhere near NYC so I don’t know what kind of warnings were actually issued. But I know that here in the midwest we get warnings all the time of various kinds of severe weather threats as they approach.
I’m sure NYC recieved warnings.
Is the issue that the warnings came from the National Weather Service and not the National Hurricane Center?
“If hit Florida, it would have been just another storm.”
The reason a non-hurricane like Sandy was so deadly, was because of the presence of the Arctic front. I doubt any hurricane in Florida has ever encountered the Arctic front.
Can’t really argue with the intention. Better than all the gloating over the stimulus to the gravy train, and ignoring the number of times similar events have occurred in the past.
Over here in NE Oz we have cyclone and severe weather “warning” and “watch”, with defined areas and time projections. When it gets to 24 hours out or thereabouts, local Disaster Management Committees kick in, with powers to requisition premises and vehicles, direct police etc. Regular civil administration is suspended.
This article is not factually correct.
I respectfully request that its author retract the claim that Sandy was not “strong enough” to be a hurricane. I was MOST CERTAINLY strong enough to be a Hurricane. It made landfall with a minimum central pressure of 939 mb for crying out loud!! The debate was over whether the storm had “tropical characteristics”.
As someone who LIVES on Long Island, I can tell you that the conditions were DEFINITELY worse than other minimal hurricanes that have passed over my head at various points in my life. We had sustained winds of easily 65 mph ON LAND and just offshore (without friction to interfere) there were sustained winds to 80…and gusts over 90 mph were fairly common in central Long Island. That…is CLEARLY of Hurricane strength.
I repeat…Sandy was NOT “just another storm”…if a 939 mb non-tropical cyclone hits Florida, I assure you, it will cause a ton of problems just as it did in NYC. Particularly if it comes attached to FOURTEEN FOOT storm surges, very VERY widespread 75 mph wind gusts and isolated severe microbursts and microvortices in the feeder bands. The statements made by the author on the nature of Sandy demonstrate deep ignorance and must be corrected.
Thank you.
Non-climate related, but this reminds of how the Macquarie Dictionary in Australia redefined the definition of the word ‘misogyny’ in the wake of the Australian Prime Minister’s tirade against the Opposition Leader.
Perhaps a “FETCH” warning system too. No?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetch_%28geography%29
Matthew Souders says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:19 pm
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Since you live there, what kind of warnings actually were issued and by whom?
I’m not asking this to be argumentative, but if a hurricane warning had been issued, what practical difference would it have made?
If you missed all the hurricane / megastorm / frankenstorm media reports I don’t see how you would have been aware of a hurricane warning either.
Is the issue that the warnings came from the National Weather Service and not the National Hurricane Center?
Yes. The NHC has a broad mandate to issue warnings across regions, whereas the NWS has a locally distributed responsibility. There was discussion in the storm discussions being issued by the NHC about how they were holding up their categorization levels specifically so that they could issues warnings beyond past the point where the NHC would hand off the warning responsibility to the NWS, which then would fragment the warnings into local ones. I echo the comment above about there being no need to change the warning system – Given the media coverage and the available analysis nobody had an excuse for not seeing this coming. We watched the damned thing develop for days.
And Mr. Souders, However you want to believe, Sandy was not a hurricane at landfall. Central pressure is not a unique criterion for hurricane categorization. Doesn’t even have to have an eye. There are many storms that come and go with low central pressures that are not hurricanes.
What Sandy was, was a broad multi-low pressure system that generated a severe storm surge on an area not structured to handle one.
Matthew Souders
Hurricanes are not defined by central pressure, and 65 mph winds do not fall into the Hurricane category. Additionally, wind gusts over 74 mph may be in the correct realm… but Maximum Sustained Winds are where the definition is at.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01006004curr.pdf
Believe it or not folks…I’m not an idiot. I am also a meteorologist, so please do not assume I fail to know what a hurricane is.
I dare you…go look up any hurricane in the best track data set that hit land and had sustained winds at landfall of less than 85 mph and produced ANY hurricane force sustained winds at an ASOS or AWOS cite. Good luck, because it don’t exist, pals. Hurricanes lose a lot of wind at the ground where we measure it as soon as they hit the friction created by land. That doesn’t mean they’re not hurricanes the very nanosecond that they hit. Nor does it mean that it’s unnecessary to hoist hurricane warnings.
Let me answer a few questions:
1) The offshore winds were measured by buoys – look it up.
2) The on shore winds were most assuredly a big part of the problem – some have suggested the problem was only surge. The literally thousands of trees down in my town alone beg to differ – as does LIP)A.
3) Actually, the question was whether it was accurate to say that this storm was not strong enough to be a hurricane (it most certainly was strong enough to be a hurricane – even if it hadn’t recorded sustained hurricane force winds just offshore at time of landfall, it wouldn’t have been for lack of STRENGTH…it would have been for lack of dynamic support immediately at the surface) or that the lack of strength was the reason for the lack of warning issuance or that this storm would have been NO PROBLEM if it had hit Florida. All of those things are blatantly false. The reason they did not issue warnings was because they believed that it moved from being a tropical system to an extratropical low just before it came ashore, not because they lowered the winds to below hurricane force. And any 939 mb cyclone ANYWHERE is going to produce major damage and surges no matter where it hits or how “used to it” those areas may be. My request for a retraction stands.
Matthew Souders says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:19 pm
This article is not factually correct.
I respectfully request that its author retract the claim that Sandy was not “strong enough” to be a hurricane. I was MOST CERTAINLY strong enough to be a Hurricane. It made landfall with a minimum central pressure of 939 mb for crying out loud!! The debate was over whether the storm had “tropical characteristics”.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane and storm scale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_hurricane_scale
Tropical Storm; 39 to 73 mph
Hurricane Cat. 1 : 74 to 95 mph scaling up to Hurricane Cat. 4 with > 157 mph.
So as Mr Souders states “sustained winds of easily 65 mph ON LAND and just offshore (without friction to interfere) there were sustained winds to 80…and gusts over 90 mph” – The storm therefore ranged between a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds and gusts of Hurricane force 1. Not pleasant but not the worst or near the worst. The storm wave surge was the problem.
Were the winds measured with a wind gauge or estimated Matthew?
” non-issuance of hurricane warnings north of North Carolina”??
If at any time anywhere in the world someone was warned of bad weather, it must have been in this case. It was all over the news for weeks, all over the world!
Whether the National Hurricane center actually called it a hurricane or not north of North Carolina makes no difference.
I suspect this is part of an effort to make “extreme weather” more common, thereby proving there’s something “unprecedented” going on with the climate and the weather.
Soon we will be seeing statistics in the mainstream media showing a jump in hurricanes, not taking into account that tropical storms have also been included.
We’ll be watching..
Gale Warning
Post Tropical Storm With Hurricane Force Wind Warning
Post Tropical Storm, Hurricane Force With Storm Surge Warning
“How Long Can You Tread Water?” Warning.
— from Bill Cosby’s “Noah: Me and You Lord.” 1963
Many, many years ago when tropical storms were common a “reference mark” was determined to establish just how severe the winds were. Cat 1, Cat 2, etc. Now everyone wants to be a “victim” so we need to classify everything lower to be all inclusive. I am personally a “victim” of circumstance.
We should lower the long term standards of rating weather events to 40 mph for hurricane status so everyone experiencing a strong thunderstorm can rave about the ‘hurricane.” For those who build a cabin on the riverside, if the water overflows the bank you can rave about the flood and claim your victim hood rather than your stupidity for building on the river’s edge. If you build a house in the forest, when the inevitable fire comes along you can claim your “victim hood.” Build on the coast at 10 feet above mean sea level and you will certainly get your chance for “victim hood.” I shed few tears for your stupidity but please don’t ask me to pay for it.
End result, government steps in and allows no one to even put up a tent or picnic table in the 500 year flood zone. Then you will cry “victim” out the other side of your mouth.
I think the warning system should be modified to issue some sort of a “hurricane
warning” or “hurricane strength storm warning” when a post-tropical or extratropical
cyclone appears likely to produce “hurricane force sustained winds”, or a storm
surge at least typical of the average 75-MPH barely-hurricane.
Hazel of 1954 produced hurricane-force sustained winds most of the way from the
NC-VA border to 70-75 miles north of Toronto – while post-tropical / extratropical
in type of storm. This includes Philadelphia and NYC.
There is also the March 1962 Nor-Easter which was the worst coastal storm of
the 20th century for much of New Jersey.
And, the October 1991 “Halloween Storm” / “Perfect Storm” which brutalized MA
to Nova Scotia , and was no picnic as far south as Jacksonville, FL and as far north
as Newfoundland. That was a primarily extratropical storm that both formed in a
strong-storm-favoring weather environment and sucked in Hurricane Grace.
When that storm was dying, the small-size un-named Hurricane 8 formed in that
storm’s center, and hit Nova Scotia as a tropical storm – with less impact than the
extratropical monster had. (Not new – Karl of 1980 also did that.)
That monster had maximum sustained winds maybe 70 MPH – barely short of
“hurricane force” – same as the monster Sandy had on USA land and coastal
barrier islands.
Katrina was a hurricane when it hit New Orleans. So why did they lose so many lives and have so much flooding?
Lets face it. They ignored history as has been shown in posts here, and are now looking for excuses.
Matthew Souders says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:19 pm
” … if a 939 mb non-tropical cyclone hits Florida, I assure you, it will cause a ton of problems just as it did in NYC. Particularly if it comes attached to FOURTEEN FOOT storm surges …”
=======================
Would you be silly enough to state a FOURTEEN FOOT storm surge from the low tide level when the normal high tide would be in excess of 6′ with regards to your reference level with the full moon? Are you hyping more than a little? Are you emotional?
The idea that Sandy was not hyped ENOUGH is positively laughable. The name “Frankenstorm” was INVENTED for this storm. The only way we could hype storms more than this is to get them sponsors. Imagine “Sandy, sponsored by Federal Express” or even, “The Microsoft Hurricane Sandy.” If we can do things like this with the Orange Bowl, we can do it with hurricanes.
Next, “The Citibank US Senate” or “The Prudential White House.” Heck, this might be the answer to the fiscal cliff.
This appears to be a bureaucratic contest over who’s “got jurisdiction”.
Mayor Bloomberg was on the TV just about any time I turned it on, warning people thath sht storm was strong and a heavy surge was expected due to the full moon.
Shut down of essentially the entire mass transit system alone should have been indication of the expected severety
So the NHC knew about a really bad storm but they couldn’t say anything about it because it didn’t meet some definition in some manual? What were they afraid of? That someone would ask for their data?
Oh…and as for surge…yes, this occurred at astronomical high tide, but 14 feet of water is still 14 feet of water…and 9 feet of actual surge above expected tide is still 9 feet of surge…which rivals most category TWO hurricanes, let alone category 1. And that amount of water can and will do catastrophic damage anywhere…Florida, Texas or NYC. The location only matters because the city is valuable property and the morphology of the sea floor and river system of the city made the situation worse.
But I repeat my challenge. Find any hurricane that made landfall with max sustained winds of 85 or less…and then find one verified sustained wind report of greater than 74 mph. You won’t be successful, but I wish you luck.
I find it disapointing that a government agency is so poorly managed that they can’t use common sense when a masssive storm is hitting a highly populated area and issue warnings. Are they so stupid that they split hairs over defining the storm. We all knew that it was very dangerous through other means of warnings.
Even though the National Hurricane center apparently was handcuffed over semantics, As one residing in New Jersey, I can say without any reservations that we were adequately warned that this was a massive, dangerous storm and we were given opportunity to take measures and most took this advice seriously.. Our Governor took this seriously and strongly communicated measures that need to be taken including extensive evacuation of potentially affected areas.
While some seem to emphasize that this was not a full blown hurricane, it does not matter since massive areas over 100 miles from the path lost electricity for periods as long as 2 weeks and a storm surge over 13 feet was experienced over 100 miles north of the storm track. As others mentioned there were other factors that contributed to the impact of the storm like a lingering NE storm, high monthly tides, etc.