I was corresponding quite a bit with Anthony after he let me share my weatherbell.com post on WUWT. (See: Bastardi: ‘potential nightmare.. a tropical cyclone coming at the outer banks on the July 4 weekend’ ) Much of it was in frustration, because by looking at some of the comments I realized there were people that did not understand why I shared the post. So, now that Arthur is gone, and you can judge the merit of the forecast, let me explain my motive.
At weatherbell.com premium, Joe D Aleo and I try to show our “why” before the “what”.
We let readers know what we are looking at and how we come to our conclusion. Here is what I figure, if show people the methodology, they will at least understand that this is about trying to win each fight with the weather as it comes to me. Its like wrestling. The great wrestlers “chain wrestle” They react based on past preparation to the situation they are in. They are relentless. They understand there will be times when their opponent may gain advantage, but their training and determination will mean that the adversity they are in can be turned into advantage. I have used that all my life. I know I will get beat sometimes, but if I then use that, the next time it comes up, I can win.
And that is where knowing the past weather comes in! You see climatology is huge to us. I pulled out the maps of Alex in 2004, I could have pulled others out, but because I believe knowing where you are in the climate cycle and what has happened before is the foundation on which you reach for the future, it gives you the CHANCE, not assures you, but the CHANCE to be right about a future event. The atmosphere is a relentless majestic opponent that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t feel and is constantly changing. Only a fool would believe that he can conquer or control it ( see where I am going here). Yet if you love the weather, only a coward would run from the fight with it. The bottom line is that you have to be willing to take hits, and learn from it. And for me, it has taught me things far beyond this field, of a more spiritual nature.
So that is my “forecasting” attitude. Its why though I am aging and not what I used to be physically, I am still involved with training guys on USA wrestling, because it reminds me you have to fight to excel. I was never a great wrestler, but I was taught you have to be willing to fight with nothing to have a chance to fight for everything. What would you do for 1 point? How hard would you work, to face that moment down when all looks lost. The weather and climate is so much more than weather and climate to me.
With all this in mind, the post was a warning shot to the agw agenda not to go there when this played out. Don’t tell us after the fact that because a storm happen to hit July 4 ( early) that it was because of co2. Don’t tell us it got stronger than it would have, when we showed why it was going too. It was because of large scale natural events that apparently you don’t understand, or don’t want to acknowledge, and by showing what I did before, that it was predictable. It was meant to show people who either know what I know, and wont admit it, or don’t know ( more likely) and don’t want to know the “why before the what” And climatology will show us the “what” ( previous event) , leading the good forecaster to discover the “why” to predict the “what” when he or she sees it again. Its an endless circle of dependence. Climatology is the foundation on which I stand as a forecast. I don’t have a degree in it, but it was drilled into me by my dad from when I was a kid, that the great forecaster had to be able to know and understand what happened before, so when he saw it again, he would have a chance.
Most of you do not get weatherbell.com premium. So you don’t see what Joe D Aleo and I do every day. We are not “climatebell.com” but why would I deny what forms the basis for what I do?
That being said, aren’t you all pursuing the truth when you put out a forecast, or comment. If you are, then you should use the facts of the past and be able to stand on them. How many of the Monday morning climatic ambulance chasers that come out after the fact on a matter, say anything 5 days before? They want an army of fools to follow them into battle, but aren’t willing to show they know tomorrow, by using what actually happened yesterday. And then they sit on high and throw down their missives of mayhem after the fact.
Well Anthony and I set a trap for them, a why before the what, using natural and predictable factors , several days before. Lets see how many of them will be foolish enough to take the bait.
The forecast one makes is an attempt to find the truth before it happens. To do so, you must know the truth about what happened before. If the pursuit about the truth of a future event is what the weather is about, why would I back away from people telling lies about something I know and use. Has nothing to do with fossil fuels, the economy, or politics. Has everything to do with answering the why before the what.
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Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
That’s good to know. Thanks for all your work and efforts at educating.
Spot on Joe, I live in Kill Devil Hills, and I feel we dodged a CANNON.
I think the Zen of it would come to you if you could adjust your thinking. You aren’t fighting the big fight you are simply calling the horse race.
You look at how they ran in the past, you analyze the field conditions from before and give it your best bet on how it will run this time.
Joe, growing up in Houston and listening to you (or your father?) on KTRH 740AM I learned a lot about not just the weather forecasts but about what was going on with the weather as a system. Thank you for taking the time to explore the context of your early warning about this storm. It personally helped my NC coastal family prepare in a timely and effective manner. Since members of that part of my family have significant health challenges, being well prepared is really important.
Joe, I don’t think most folks understand or appreciate what you bring to the table. On an earlier post you submitted on WUWT, I commented on the possible sound side flooding given the track that was forecast and the new inlet that formed about 3 years ago just north of Rodanthe. It appears that stretch was once again the focus of nature’s wrath, allowing the natural flow release the pressure of the water pushed into the sound from the south coinciding with a high tide near the time of landfall. It doesn’t take a big storm to make a mess. Now, we will hear all about the climate. The damage will be the direct result of “more intense” storms, instead of a lack of common sense.
One of the things I’ve been expecting since the current warm AMO cycle began was a repeat of the tropical cylone seasons of the 1950s. One of my earliest weather memories is being brushed by one on Long Beach Island in 1954 or ’55. That and lake effect storms in NE Ohio were major influences on my interest in weather.
I really appreciate comments you’ve made about that period being late in the last warm cycle, and really, really appreciate you talking about that risk well before anyone has brought it up.
I agree, if we get a repeat of some of those storm too many people will be besides themselves knowing that CAGW has reared its ugly head yet again when all that has happened is weather has repeated itself.
The news coverage post-Sandy shows what a lame-ish ex-tropical storm turned nor’easter can do when it hits in exactly the wrong spot where people haven’t bothered to prepare for it. Ditto Katrina, though at least it was a Cat-3 hurricane.
Ditto the hurricane of 1938. One of the reasons I posted http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/21/weather-before-and-after-the-hurricane-of-1938/ on its 75th anniversary was in part to emphasize that we get real hurricanes up here. I also wanted to counter the mantra of “The weather is getting more extreme and it’s all due to CAGW.” I reference tropical storms and nor’easters from 1927 to 1960, and did so in part to be able to point to a handy “It’s happened before” in case it happens again.
So, keep up the great work, and let’s hope that if we do have a repeat of the 1950s that people will hear it’s a repeat of the 1950s.
Joe nose the weather!
Joe – I, for one, appreciate your approach. I see it on twitter and I see it with your Saturday Summary on WeatherBell. Keep up the good fight, because “it’s the only weather you’ve got.” 😉
“The weather and climate is so much more than weather and climate to me.”
—————————
Joe, I believe that line was plagiarized from Al Gore.
(if I remember it correctly but, maybe not)
Al said “The weather and climate is so much more than weather and climate to me. It’s worth billions of bucks and I’m serial.” Then he added, “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
I’ll try to find time later to properly research the quote.
cn
Let me add a truly serious thank you to Joe.
I have a house and brother-in-law in Norfolk, VA.
cn
“Well Anthony and I set a trap for them, a why before the what, using natural and predictable factors , several days before. Lets see how many of them will be foolish enough to take the bait.”
________________________
If past is prologue, then your “proofs” won’t make the slightest difference and we’ll soon be bombarded with more of the “proof of climate disruption” propaganda. We may even hear the baseless talking points coming from the highest levels of US government, although POTUS has been running around in Texas, fundraising and tugging heart strings, justifying why he is about to unilaterally grant amnesty to the flood of illegals coming across the border. Oh, wait- the gov’t has declared that they can no longer be called “illegals”.
I always paid attention to what you say and thank you. I remember the 50’s on Long Island as a small boy. As I recall Tropical Storms were not at all unusual back then.
Ooops pay not paid
Chuck with me, its not money, its the lesson learned. I have found that many ministers and priests love the weather too. I am almost 59 and as I get older, I see that part of the linkage, and that is what I am talking about. As far as money and power… I am a ditchdigger, but to quote Judge Smails in Caddyshack: The world needs ditch diggers too.
You wont have to look that up, I live by it
I never knew Al Gore said, that, as I am more acquainted with some of his profanity in his tirades. Takes away from what he is actually saying. ha ha
Who knew he loved the weather at 3 like I did when he was on that tobacco farm with his anti civil rights dad ( now that is an inconvenient truth) Especially since it seems he lovers to call guys that disagree with him racists, and we are akin to the tobacco industry. I am sure you can find some quotes from him to support that
cheers
The damage will be to folks whose houses sit with their toe in the water, whether it is the pilings or their front porch that forms the big toe. Then after the damage is done the insurance and building codes let them rebuild their big toe on the same spot!!!! No amount of wise forecasting can help a fool already committed to living on a sand foundation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Mr. B.
It is always better to be a Leader rather than a Lemming, but it is never easier.
Thanks Joe.
This is a good essay and y’all made a good lesson out of this event. We do have relatives strung up the coast from Savanna on north and thus had great interest in the path and strength of H. Arthur. Your inclusion of H. Alex from 2004 was a nice touch. That made me wonder if there are records of earlier storms, say pre-WWII, that formed in this location. There are historical records of many storms along the Atlantic Coast but the location of their origin might not be known.
It also seems to me that such a storm is interesting enough and rare enough to deserve a general name for the group. If another name hasn’t been suggested, I will offer either “A Bastardi Hurricane” or “A Bastardi Event” (one not making the critical wind speed for H. status). Well deserved, but also just enough to rattle the chain of the climocleptomanics.
Happy 4th.
I have to go put a couple of flags out at the gate.
[No H. here. 2,200 feet in central Washington State.]
Very pathetic.
As a Brit following Joe on twitter, i find it truly refreshing to have a supported, analytic, balanced approach to our climate. Over here, the UK Met office should have a great reputation for forecasting and climate science, but it has become so politicized with an agenda that infiltrates its forecasts and collaborates with it’s main broadcast media, the BBC. These are two great institutions that should be the bastions of science, impartiality and the advancement of our understanding of our climatic world. Instead they are corrupted with an agenda that brooks no dissent, misleading the public and feeding politicians with the ability to bash us with taxes, blight our landscape and deny us the wealth of new energy. I replied to Joe on twitter that his voice was like a whisper in an hysterical crowd, and the realists, the seekers of truth those who question as we should, are just whispers in a maddened crowd. But truth will out, and I firmly believe that the crowd will eventually be silenced so all can hear reason. We may have to freeze our nuts off for a bit before however.
Thanks Joe, thanks Anthony we’re listening and learning.
“…
Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
…”
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Thanks Joe
Joe, thanks not only for WHAT you do, but HOW and WHY you do it. You’re one of the best
When the warmists stop using conditionals like might, could, may and instead use will, does and shall, I will call climatology a science. Right now it’s an art.
Geology is an art also, and how I have fed my family. I am an industrial geologist, and like Joe, make falsifiable predictions. The Mannian climatologist armwaves and refuses vociferously to make predictions that could falsify his claim to superior understanding. The warmist supporters don’t get it in their need for certainty, a protective father figure and backup for a naive ideology. You don’t know if you can’t predict.
Congratulations, Joe. That was an excellent piece of work, and helped the public. You did what Alarmists have,’t done in two ways, right there. You forecast correctly, and helped the public. When have they done either? (Sorry to be so blunt.)
The funny thing is that, despite the fact I can’t think of a single thing they have forecast correctly, (Soaring world temperatures, tropical hot spot, children wondering what snow is, ice-free north pole, etc.,) they never admit a mistake, and clamor for more money.
If they continue to get money they will waste their minds on thinking up ways to make it look like their botched forecasts were not botched. Adjust the Dust Bowl temperatures downwards? Erase the Medieval Warm Period? Draw cartoons of you with a cigarette drooping from your lips? What will they think of next?
I may not be able to predict the weather like you, but I am getting pretty good at predicting Alarmists, and I predict this:
The hardest part of predicting hurricanes is the simple fact each storm has an amazing individuality. (This is why they used to be named after women, but apparently that wasn’t politically correct, as we men are also amazing.) Even though you saw this coming days in advance and warned it would be more intense than models foresaw and alerted the North Carolina coast, they will seek to downplay your skill by pointing out you were fifty or so miles off the exact track from five days out. Then, after ignoring how hard it is to predict storms that wobble north like tops, they will use the amazing individuality to dust off their favorite word “unprecedented.”
They will find some way Arthur was different from every other hurricane, and will call it “unprecedented,” and will put on that silly face they use, with their eyes round and insinuating something spooky is happening.
I tried this when I first held my granddaughter. I looked at her tiny fingers and said, “These fingerprints are unprecedented!” and put on my best Steve Martin look of owlish awe. My wife told me to “cut it out.”
Perhaps this world will get to that point with Alarmists, and will simply tell them to “cut it out.”
Thank you Joes (both of you) for your excellent work. You both nailed the forcast before any other news or weather agencey had any idea that a hurricane would form. I have always been impressed with your forcasting skills (I grew up in Houston) but the Arthur forcast was amazingly accurate many days in advance. I told my wife early this week about the forcast and this morning she said “You were right about a hurricane hitting North Carolina.” I told her that Joe Bastardi and Joe D Aleo at weatherbell.com were the ones who were right and I have come to trust their work because their accuracy surpasses every other forcaster in the U.S..