I’ve been getting a few worried queries on Facebook from people that want my opinion about the “Mega-storm packing 150 mph winds and 50-foot waves set to pummel West Coast” that has been making the rounds as seen below:
What is your take on this storm coming into the West coast areas of Washington, Oregon and California. 50 ft waves and 150 mph winds. worse that the 1962 storm?
When I saw that headline, I cringed, because the author from a website called Medium, one Kevin Thomas Hulten, says he is a FEMA-certified disaster PIO, an award-winning publisher/reporter & founder of the Bay Area-based strategic communication firm K15n. is using the image of Typhoon Songda at it’s strongest on October 11th, along with the effects of a typhoon at that strength “50 ft waves and 150 mph winds” in a headline that suggests these effects will hit the West Coast of the USA.
He’s not just wrong, he’s irresposnibly wrong in my opinion; if he really is trained by to be a “FEMA-certified disaster PIO”, he should know better. Unless of course, hype is part of that FEMA training. The data simply doesn’t support his wild claim. For example, here is the current bulletin up on the NWS Seattle home page:
A factual story in the Seattle Times was much less alarming:
“This is one of those rare cases where (a typhoon) just happened to get swept up in the right way and get in an environment where it could grow again right off our coast,” Bond said. “When everything comes together like that — look out.”
On Thursday, computer models showed the storm passing directly over Western Washington, said Kirby Cook, science officer for the National Weather Service in Seattle. But even small shifts in the storm track can change which areas will be hit hardest, he cautioned.
Pressure measurements show a very intense low at the heart of the storm, which means high winds. But the pressures aren’t quite as low as those that spawned the (1962) Columbus Day storm.
“This doesn’t look as strong as that, right now,” Cook said. “But it may very well end up being the strongest storm we’ve had in the last five to 10 years.”
Gosh, compare these two quotes:
“FEMA Certified Disaster PIO” Kevin Thomas Hulten says –
Packing 150 mph sustained winds, a storm some meteorologists are calling the “biggest storm in history” will hit coastal regions of the U.S. this Saturday,generating 45-foot waves, and dumping multiple feet of rainfall across an area including three states and two countries.
NWS science officer Kirby Cook says –
…the strongest storm we’ve had in the last five to 10 years.
The graphic provide by the Times is very instructive:
And here is a Tweet from a couple of days ago by the NWS Seattle, that shows what the storm looks like now as a strong extra-tropical low pressure system:
Satellite loop of past 3 days showing transition from ridge to stormy pattern in the Pacific NW. #wawx pic.twitter.com/z75XNFKf9i
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) October 14, 2016
Compare that image of the low approaching the coast to the typhoon picture used in the Medium story by Kevin Thomas Hulten and I think you’ll agree they look nothing alike.
Compare the measured wind speed of 52mph at sea by a ship off the coast of Seattle to “packing 150 mph winds”:
Low offshore still has considerable deepening to do, but vessel on back side of it had sustained wind of 52 mph near 38.6 N 138.1 W. #wawx pic.twitter.com/v1YaSTii9t
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) October 15, 2016
It seems though, some “journalists” just can’t help but generate clickbait.
Mashable’s Andrew Freedman fell into that trap yesterday, and I called him out on it:
Worse than we thought! There's DNA in Super Typhoons now, breeding at sea, apparently. pic.twitter.com/xIcYRHE6v0
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) October 14, 2016
Here is the graphic from that Tweet, click to enlarge:
In my opinion, these doomster journalists do the world a great disservice when they print hype like that, because when the “super typhoon” and 150 mph winds and 50 foot waves don’t materialize in Seattle and nearby areas, people will remember that the warnings didn’t match reality, and the next time a big storm comes through, they might not take it seriously enough to prepare because the last one was such a bust.
It’s called “warning fatigue” (something NOAA recognizes) combined with fixation on something that is pointless entertainment. And, it isn’t just in the USA, Britain has it too.
My friend Mike Smith speaks of this problem in his book Warnings: The true story of how science tamed the weather.
I’ve read it, and I’ve lived and experienced much of what he’s written about in the quest to make forecasting, especially severe weather forecasting, more accurate, timely, and specific. For those of us that prefer practical approaches over the rampant speculation on mere wisps of connections to climate this book is for you.
Interestingly, while “warning fatigue” was well known long ago when too many weather bulletins occur and the populace tunes out because they weren’t personally affected, so it goes today with the increasingly shrill climate warnings we see in the media.
The public is starting to tune those out too.
People pay good money to go to the cinema and watch an horror movie because they like to get frightened. This idiot is just tuning in to this desire in order to fulfill a need.
ALL Fed Gov PIO’s are journalists and PR people, trained by journalists and PR people, they usually don’t know crap. Second, any training from FEMA is suspect. I attended one of their “preparedness” seminars on behalf of our township. It was just a regurgitation of the Boy Scout handbook, put into a powerpoint, and presented by someone who has, clearly, never experienced a real emergency.
When bullshit gets you a well paid government sinecure, bullshit is what you will get.
Nobody wants or even knows how to run anything anymore.
But they sure know how to bullshit that they do!
I am near Seattle. So far, it has rained a fair amount. Some spotty power outages. Big surprise for late October in this area. Lots of discussion about winds this afternoon and evening. My wife is already skeptical about the hype. She was mumbling something about boys crying wolf.
Yup, warning fatigue has been brought up here on WUWT and I find the hype to be totally irresponsible.
Our local weather teams all have a born-and-raised-local meteorologist to head the team. They recognize the vagaries that influence the weather on specific areas (open farm, reservoirs, rural-gone-to-urban) in a 5-8 county region that they forecast. They know the weather pattern history of the area and it is noticeable that they don’t mindlessly hype severe weather in areas not likely to get it. They do a good job as there is local tradition, going back to when I was a kid, of competition for the most accurate local forecasts. (Oh, I’m in a medium-sized TV market.)
Except snow… I’ve never seen a TV meteorologist that doesn’t get excited about the possibility of a blizzard ;o) Ah well. Got to allow them their one guilty pleasure I suppose.
I suspect the hype comes from larger markets where hype is used to garner eyeballs for the local weather. In smaller markets, the ‘weatherman’ has to live with those who are watching and will catch he!! if he’s off on the forecast.
As I’ve often said (more in a business management context) “if you reward firefighting, you get arsonists”. This is a great example, only substitute “clickbait” for “firefighting” and you get the idea.
I live in Victoria, just north of Seattle on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and we too are being inundated with storm warnings.
The media hype is comparing the incoming storm to what was called Hurricane Frieda that came through in 1962. Yet, we had an almost-as-strong storm that came in mid-December 2006 that did as much or more damage, at least in Vancouver (over the water from Victoria, on the mainland).
Good comparison of 2006 to 1962 storms here, http://www.vancourier.com/news/looking-back-at-the-storm-of-the-century-1.2045930
The 2006 storm described here, http://www.ctvnews.ca/stanley-park-marks-windstorm-anniversary-1.267785
Compared the max wind speeds of gusts from those reports (at Vancouver airport):
Un-named late November storm 1955, 129 kilometres per hour
Frieda remnant, mid-October 1962, 126 kilometres per hour
mid-December 2006 storm, 120 kilometres per hour
It will be interesting to see what we get this time. It blew pretty hard yesterday morning but is almost calm right now.
Susan
“Interestingly, while “warning fatigue” was well known long ago when too many [warnings] … occur and the populace tunes out … so it goes today with the increasingly shrill climate warnings we see in the media.
“The public is starting to tune those out too.”
True. But, unfortunately the politicians and their attendant lawmakers and enforcers … oops, policy makers … aren’t tuning them out. And, since the dawn of progressivism they’ve shown an increasing inclination to disregard what the public cares about or wants. Witness Obama’s cringe inducing handover of the Internet to the UN (with nary a whisper of objection from Ryan and the Republican … ‘majority’) despite opposition to that travesty running as high as 80% among the public.
Here’s one of the local weather reports (for Victoria), calling this a “weather bomb”.
http://www.cheknews.ca/weather-bomb-storm-to-hit-b-c-saturday-230619/
Is that *really* an accepted weather term or an accepted term of hype?
Hulten should try joining the Clinton campaign. He seems qualified.
“Leveraging the power of trusted messengers” as the TV Mets program of Climate Central put it, is an essential part of stoking the fear that maintains the force of the Global Warming storm. Colouring mid 20 deg C temps molten red on the local forecast maps and describing average temps as “normal” makes everything not exactly average, “abnormal”.
Be afraid, very afraid.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not true that the ocean current along the pacific coast of the US a cold current that flows south from the Arctic? Would not a tropical storm that crosses a cold current be damped, just as one that crosses a warm current in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico is strengthened?
Of course you are 100% right, Anthony – but please don’t “cringe”, Anthony, when you spot Hulton’s name. That attaches far too much weight and importance to that sort of fellow. Just laught out loud – because it does not really matter that the news media print sensationalist stories. They do it because the sad fact is that a large number of mankind unfortunately are gullible and on the wrong side of the IQ bell-curve but have enough money to make it worth while for certain media outlet to print that sort of stuff. It is the phenomenon which makes possible the existence of all gutter press journalism – which has always been with us. Just laugh, Anthony – don’t cringe.
Phases 1 and 2 were pretty nondescript here on the BC Southern Gulf Islands; 30 foot spray from waves on the rocks usually hits our 2nd storey windows. Not yet. Drainage ditch no threat to driveway. Yet. But plenty of true-believers raiding the supermarkets. Me? Awaiting the next Wikileaks popcorn fest…..
Also, bear in mind that there is a full moon this weekend, thus, the tide will be a bit more powerful.
I’ve had a bit of fun with this storm. Everywhere I go, people are commenting on how frightful the weather is. A spur of the moment retort has now turned into a favourite and oft repeated line:
Yes, aren’t glad human beings invented the indoors?”
The reactions are mixed, but follow a general pattern. Brief moment of puzzlement, then lights come on, then a smile or chuckle. Cuts down the SJW, CC, Gaia is dying crowds right at the knees.
Like the line about “inventing the indoors”.
The line I use in the summer is “Nice day–its room temperature outside.”
Cliff Mass has been following the storm …
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
And Windytv has an interesting display of the winds. Ugly offshore, not so bad on land.
https://www.windytv.com/?45.301,-125.514,6
Stay tuned.
Classical recurvature of a typhoon in the western Pacific undergoing extratropical transition. I studied several storms like this that eventually became very dangerous after they re-intensified in the Gulf of Alaska. It’s a fairly rare occurrence and very difficult to forecast. I agree that the reporting was irresponsible and terribly misleading.
Except for this storm brought a 700ft tornado with gust of 140mph through my town ripping it to shreds. Completely devastating and the worst of the storm hasn’t even reached land yet. So turns out this man who you assumed wasn’t right actually was
The reason for the hype is for these drive by media journalists to set the table for post storm stories that it is connected to “human induced CO2 climate change”. You will probably see some stories after the storm that will warn you that Al Gore’s prophecies are coming true and you need to vote for Hillary so that he can become her science advisor and save the planet with carbon and energy taxes.
I sent an e-mail to the worst offenders of this rot here in Portland, Oregon yesterday that this type of meme is totally false. Storms like this intensify by tapping COLDER THAN AVERAGE air from high latitude that is driven southward towards the 38th parallel of the east Pacific ocean and has nothing to do with the lies that a warming arctic is the cause as touted by the Francis/Vavrus nonsense that I wrote about here last March.
More intense and frequent storms like this are not a sign of a warming earth, but rather, the opposite or at least that the temperatures on the north side of a frontal boundary are as cold as they have been over a century of time. Extra tropical storm development like this feeds on strong frontal boundaries and a baroclinic atmosphere, not warm tropical water.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
“Biggest in history…”
All 100 years of it.
An offshore weather station in Washington State shows yesterday’s results and is currently experiencing more weather today.
https://www.wunderground.com/marine-weather/buoy/2016/10/14/46041.html
Wind gusts 90KM/HR max here and sustained 40-60. Some trees down, power outages all the usual stuff. Were used to it on the “Wet” Coast, some of the local media outlets have been hyping the drama but then they also think that we care what the Khardasians are wearing.
We are waiting for the main event tonight. Now where is Kim today?……..Vancouver BC
Fellow readers – Heading out soon to coach a youth football (American) game in the leading edges of this storm. Foul weather gear will be on but as I have weathered many of these PNW storms in the past I expect all to get soaked.
I’ll post later regarding the experience(if possible); also if we have electricity will give you all a first-hand account of happenstances either during or after the event.
Wish us well here in Western Washington!! (I live in a suburb with 70 to over 100 foot tall Douglas Fir tress adjacent to my home).
Regards,
MCR