From the HEAD LINES MATTER department. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder, did you know what you just said?
Case in point, Eric Blake, from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) tweeted September 7th:
And that Tweet has the takeaway “Never seen anything like this in the modern record” and spawned this story from MSN, quoting Blake: Note the headline using his takeaway phrase slightly modified.
The lead-in to that story reads:
For the first time in modern history, three hurricanes in the Atlantic are lined up in the most dangerous of ways, according to Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.
Here’s where that takeway from Blake runs off the rails. Recall back in 2010 we had a trio of hurricanes that looks very much like what Blake claimed was a first by saying “Never seen anything like this in the modern record”.
According to Blake’s Twitter exchange, after “Yannick” brought up that image from 2010, Blake says he’s only referencing a trio of hurricanes that “threaten land”:
Distorted to make it look similar? He’s spinning, and Ellen Bemben is right. Blake said in his initial tweet with the three images:
Never seen anything like this in the modern record #Irma#Jose#Katia
MSN picked up on it, and now we have a “fake news” headline about three hurricanes that is inaccurate in the context it presents.
The issue is that Hurricane Jose in the 2017 image is affecting the Leeward Islands, where Julia in 2010 did not., (save for some rain and winds on the Cape Verde islands) NHC has issued Jose advisories for Land effects on the Leward Islands, but has cancelled other warnings, and there’s no threat to the U.S.
Many people on Twitter and other social media equated “land” to be the USA, they don’t think about tiny islands like the Leeward Islands, most couldn’t even point them out on a map. People just don’t see the fine distinction about the “threatening land” because from their perspective, all the hurricanes are a threat, and they think “USA”, not Leeward islands. It really doesn’t enter into their thought process at all.
While Blake is technically correct about the “threatening land” part of his tweet, the takeway phrase is the one that got “legs” and is running the opposite direction he intended.
And, now that image from Yannick comparing three Atlantic Hurricanes in 2010 and 2017 is getting heavy play on social media, and Blake is being excoriated for the headline thanks to the law of unintended consequences.
Blake would do well to simply say he made a mistake, or didn’t choose his words carefully, and notify MSN so they can correct the headline. Despite his claims on his Twitter profile (bold mine)…
NHC scientist, CSU/ULM alum, vegan runner, Tweets weather hurricanes El Niño/La Niña climate pets politics frogs-My personal opinions only, NOT my employer’s!
…I’d bet that NHC would want to correct this word blunder, as they strive to be factual. MSN connects Blake and NHC in their article, so his caveat is for naught.
UPDATE: I put this story on hold yesterday, because he’s made an honest mistake and I was pretty sure he’d correct it so the headline would get fixed. I had hoped someone at NHC or professional acquaintances would nudge Blake, and he’d work to correct the misconception. Nope. I contacted Blake today on Twitter, and he wasn’t at all receptive:
Now if you could fix ur blunder on "never before seen" 3x hurricanes, you'd be in the same league with NHC's "solidness" People arent buying
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
And according to NHC today, Hurricane Jose may not threaten landfall on U.S. Yes I know, islands, but most unaware of that tiny distinction.
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
I'm trying to help you here, and you start attacking my intelligence. Maybe you live in bubble, but you are being excoriated on social media
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
Ok, have it your way. I tried to help you understand how your tweet has gone out of control and turned u into laughingstock on social media.
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
Not disparaging his credibility, just trying to help him understand how a tweet got turned into a headline that's getting him blasted
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
Oh, well I tried. BTW, those are not all the exchanges, just a few I had with him. I really did try to help, he wouldn’t have it.
The ego is not master in its own house. -Sigmund Freud
We did agree on one thing though:
On that we agree.
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) September 9, 2017
ADDED: For perspective, in 1998, there were FOUR hurricanes in the Atlantic at once.
See: https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/four-hurricanes-once-atlantic-basin-20130925
Ah, the entrenchment effect. If in error, auger in ever deeper.
In retrospect it might have been better to redefine “modern record” to mean less than 5 years.
He is taking himself seriously but not literally.
He would do better to recognise that the fact of whether they are all in a position to “threaten land” at any one time is not significant to how usual/unusual this kind of alignment is, rather than using that as his get out clause.
Eric Blake
Replying to @Anthony Watts
Tons of hurricane records are set in many years. I think some are assuming this is climate change- and they would be wrong
=========
Unfortunately that is exactly impression have gave.
Another interesting similarity is that the “K” hurricane is in the Gulf and churning around Veracruz, the “I” hurricane is the largest of the 3 and between the “K” and “J” storms and the “J” hurricane is farthest east.
In both cases the alphabetical l J K are ordered K I J
In pilot terminology to “auger in” is to crash and burn.
We use to jokingly call it PGI (i.e., Plain Ground Interference) :<)
Especially in a flat spin where the vertical profile looks like an auger.
Max, OSHA should require a virtual trench box for tweets like his.
I like your name. Max Photon, the superhero. With big guns. Shooting big photons.
??
Re:
Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder, did you know what you just said?
Giving Mr. Blake the benefit of the doubt in this case is nonsense.
It is obvious from the testimonial record (see above “tweets”) that Mr. Blake knew exactly what he just said — and why.
He just hoped his power and influence in the progressive’s “new science” industry might deter any fact based disagreements. Then he justified his alarmism using a questionable qualifier of the validity of his original statement.
Seems that Twitter proves “sometimes it’s best to leave unsaid, the things that pop into your head” for a number of influential people.
Pop. Seems to me you and Janice nailed it.
I seem to a recall an image from the 2000’s – perhaps the busy years of 04 or 05 – (not sure) where there were actually four cyclones in the pipeline – from the Cape Verde region to the Gulf.
Jump to the left….no jump back to the right…now jump left again…..now try to jump back right when there’s no where to go everything is full……and they have the nerve to talk about how beautiful it is blah blah…and write your SS number on your arm
Everyone is sopissed they can’t see straight
25 degrees N, Hi there
Good to hear from you, hope you are not in the keys.
Hey vuk, we’re in Hernando…of course went to Naples first on the recommendation of the NHC
..no one can get to the east coast now, it’s full
Has to be over 20 million evaced or on the road now….and that’s not counting tourists
I75 north of Tampa was a parking lot…took 41 backroads was clear and had a great drive up
Getting back might be impossible….
..and house looks to be in the clear also…it’s built for more than that
let’s hope you will not need to move further north in a day or two.
Latitude,
I am here in Orlando. Friends up north called and asked why I was not on the road headed to Tennessee or further north. Well, because I don’t want to be in a car stuck on the road when a major cane got to me. I want to at least be in a house (where I am now).
If I was on the coast, I would have left days ago and might be to the state line by now. (or stranded without gas, who knows)
It is not easy when 5 million plus people all decided to head north at the same time.
Mark, look at wind on ventusky….I don’t see anything to worry about up here. I don’t think you would ever get out of Wildwood right now, if what I saw on 75 is any indication….and you’re right there’s no gas, anywhere that I can find.
It’s a lot more than 5 million….they have that number from what they called mandatory areas….There’s a lot more than that from nonmandatory and tourists. I would guess closer to 10
All that back an forth chaos due mostly to faulty computer models. Seems like it would be a good time for the news media (at least those without a CAGW/NWO agenda) to point out the model errors made when forecasting only days ahead let alone decades and the resultant chaos due to these errors. They have caused many people to run into the path of the storm.
So Newfoundland and its’ population are what, chopped liver?
It’s its.
You’re right!
Darn it. Can’t even make a bad joke…
“Your rite” perhaps, otter?
Sometimes it’s’es’ just donesn’t matter. 😎
(Best advice I ever heard regarding keeping “it’s” (contraction of “it is” )vs “its” (third person possessive) is to think of “his” and “hers”.
My tip is to remember “never possessive!” (E.g., you can say “Tom’s cat” but you can’t say “it’s cat”.)
Seal flippers
Seal flipper pie.
Chopped baby seal liver.
Question:
Answer:
You’re not a polar bear, so not enough people care about you.
Since Miami will not be in the path let’s go clubbing tonight
Yeah, baby!
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/music/south-beachs-ten-best-dance-clubs-6443070
Get down, tonight!
Arriba, arriba!
Can’t believe that babe rated Mango’s only Número nueve.
That is probably a PETA activist killing seals to spare them from being eaten by polar bears.
Or a Warmunista trying to starve the polar bears to death in order to further the Party Line narrative.
Not that polar bears eat many baby harp seals. Ringed seal pups, yes. As many as they can pop down to slake their spring hunger.
Igor was even more devastating to Baffin Island than to Newfoundland. To this day not a single tree over 3 meters was left standing.
Great story there including the global warming hurricane threat to polar bears if he can just bypass the whole meridional air flows influencing global climate connection thing.
http://kiggavik.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4e2b53ef0133f48d8cdf970b-800wi
They have trees on Baffin Island?
I wouldn’t have thought Baffin Island would have had any tree over 3 m before Igor. Maybe I’m wrong.
As if we knew in 2010 the future tracks of those hurricanes when that picture was taken, just as we know the future tracks of the present hurricanes.
good point
Blake learned from the best:
(youtube — Al Gore lying his head off. Again.)
Keep that ol’ Ivanpah and other solar sc@m (and wind sc@m) money a comin’. (Notice how Al Gore pours on the “countreh bo-ih” accent to patronize the commercial crab fisherman in the video. Had me fooled — NOT. lol)
Sounds like an Inconvenient Truth.
Al Gore looks rather prosperous.
He has taken over from Ted Kennedy the role of human manatee.
Make that humanoid.
Or pompous, because he is prosperous!
“O, the huge manatee!”
http://www.xavier.edu/manateeresearch/images/maleanatomy.JPG
Seeking a massage with happy finish, like fat Prince Albert.
When did our sober, cautious and dull scientists turn into hysterical schoolgirls?
Maybe it’s just climate scientists. Too little knowledge and too much attention don’t mix well.
that’s sexist, these days schoolboys are just as bad
Don’t forget that some of them are allegedly gender “neutral” or gender “fluid”! Whatever that means? Probably a triumph of rebellion over nature. Good luck with that!
A meaningful discussion is impossible when the person whom you are having a discussion with, regards their own subjective thought processes as superior, to others whose also,subjective thought processes they regard as invalid. Once the argument changes to logical and objective thinking, they are like a duck out of the water, hysteria, threats and violence dominate the “discussion.”
The Western education system and modern parental “skills” have a lot to answer for!
I think I heard Obummer say you could choose the schoolgender you are most comfortable with.
Yes, that crowd’s ideology utterly fails the logic test, but seeing that coming they have decided to also reject logic (along with biology and science in general) as just another tool of oppression from the old white guys. Post Modernism and its spawn will not be good for this next generation.
Virtue signaling is in. Especially in the Age of Resistance.
Age of resistance, or age of anarchy?
Never before in all of history have we had so many pictures and radar images of hurricanes! If that doesn’t prove something, then nothing does! We’re all going to die, run for your lives!
Sad to see professionals refuse to acknowledge the looseness of a phrase. Correcting himself costs little.
Non load-bearing belief systems cannot withstand any questioning at all. The tiniest doubt could bring the whole mountain of sophistry crashing down. It can’t happen too soon…
As I recall, there must be a similar image from the year of Katrina in 2005 when there were so many hurricanes one after the other. I have to look up the dates. of Katrina, Rita, Wilma, etc…
IMO there were never three hurricanes “threatening” land all at the same time in 2005, despite its many strong storms.
Looks like the film; “The Day After Tomorrow” transcends “An Inconvenient Truth” as the new reference work for AGW. No doubt the expression “The truth can be stranger than fiction” will also be spouted by these idiots who seem to have more grant money and publicity than brains.
So, he did basically what Rush Limbaugh said, and got ripped for, five days ago. Bedwetter. Where does the swamp NOT exist? They did manage to evacuate Miami and most of south Florida to Tampa and Orlando. Good job guys!
Now the eye is predicted to pass right through Tampa!
Making predictions is tricky, especially about the future.
Holy mackerel. Looking like Rush was exactly right. Very plausible right now that, with latest track glancing very western edge of peninsula, this doesn’t even make direct landfall until the panhandle and then only as a Cat 1 after encountering both shear and dry air. Wow. Very plausible, at this moment, that evacuees, all 7 million of them, encounter hurricane conditions where they evacuated TO than where they evacuated from. Good job climate bedwetters.
It’s like Irma threw a left hook and they leaned into it.
Yogi would be proud.
Question: what would John Hope think of this?
Unprecedented Irma never seen of such magnitude in the universe before is going to sputter up the coast of Cuba losing energy all the way. Its arms are over Florida and Cuba, not the ocean. Probably sputters up to Mobile much weaker than now.
i believe in being prepared in case nothing at all happens.
somebody’s gotta do it.
Wholeheartedly. People didn’t need to leave 3 days ago though and could have just driven 40 miles inland towards the end, if likely threatened by the eye. Surge evacuees are one thing, but evacuees who left because they saw the wind damage in the Caribbean are something else. Climate bedwetters scared a lot of people to death. It’s very plausible right now that most evacuees will be threatened by hurricane conditions, inland tree falls and flooding where they evacuated to than where they evacuated from. Yikes!
‘Mini’ nuclear reactors could help solve Britain’s energy crunch and cut a third off bills, ministers hope
“Ministers are ready to approve the swift development of a fleet of “mini” reactors to help guard against electricity shortages, as older nuclear power stations are decommissioned.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/09/go-ahead-mini-reactors-energy-crunch-looms/
whatever happen to the renewals?
Is this another money black hole from the exasperated taxpayers ?
Let’s invent what no one has invented before. We have a budget in place. Problem solved.
Let’s build what no one has managed to build before and call it Flamandeville, errrr, Olkiluoto 3, errr , I mean Hinckley C .
Wrong, they have been building them all along, what do you think powers Nuclear Subs, Ice Breakers and Aircraft Carriers?
He sounds like a politician.
I think I see the problem. It’s that pesky word “see” or “seeing” having different meanings.
I wish someone would point to a climate that has changed…
I agree.
This should be one of he first questions for the red/blue team if activated.
Require the warmers to make a list of past and other climate changes that have occurred and be required to provide a written scientific documentation of each claim. Potential start of list:
More Hurricanes
More Tornadoes
More Draughts
Negative impact on Agriculture
Acceleration in sea level rise
Demise of Polar Bears
Add:
Ocean “acidification”
Bleaching of coral reefs
Actual reason for there not being the “pause” that even the IPCC acknowledged occurred.
Increased wildfires
Increased drought longevity and intensity
Multiple Atlantic tropical cyclones aren’t rare at all.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/three-tropical-cyclones-atlantic-2016#/!
It happened last year and in 2013, for example.
“The last time the Atlantic had three tropical cyclones active at once was Sept. 13, 2013, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a tropical scientist at Colorado State University. On that day, Tropical Storm Ingrid was soaking eastern Mexico while Gabrielle and Humberto were in the Atlantic.
“It’s not uncommon to have multiple tropical cyclones active in the Atlantic simultaneously during the busiest part of the season, typically August into October. Records show that every year from 1998-2013 had three active tropical cyclones at once in the Atlantic during some point in the season.
“In fact, twice in history there were four hurricanes in the Atlantic at the same time. That occurred on Aug. 22, 1893 and Sept. 25, 1998.”
And of course we’ve all learned that 1926 had three major hurricanes at once (twice): #4 of Cat 4, September 1–21 (which didn’t hit land); #5 of Cat 2, September 10-14 (no land) and #7 of Cat 4, September 11-22, the infamous Miami Hurricane. There was also #8 of Cat 2, September 21 to October 1, but it didn’t hit land, either. It did however mean there were yet again three hurricanes after #5 dissipated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_Atlantic_hurricane_season#Hurricane_Four
Nothing is happening now that hasn’t always happened, and worse.
Of course Eric Blake might object that only one of those four 1998 hurricanes threatened land.
When did the ‘modern record’ begin?
Tonyb
After whenever the last such image was available.
Those images suggest 2011 was the start of the current decade and the modern record.
Sandy
Presumably they have been monitoring them in this fashion during the satellite era? Around 1979 or so?
Presumably no one would ever attempt to make those claims if the modern record started only in 2011?
Tonyb
First WX satellite was in 1959, but didn’t provide much useful info. It was followed by two other not very successful experiments. The first successful WX satellite was TIROS-1, launched by NASA on April Fools’ Day, 1960.
Then the Nimbus program during the ’60s improved effectiveness.
So, basically the modern ‘record’ started around the time of the Beatles?
Tonyb
Tony,
Maybe around the time of “Yellow Submarine”, since Nimbus 3 might have been the first satellite with capabilities comparable to today’s.
Here’s a shot of Camille from 16 Aug 1969:
But I could be wrong about that. Maybe comparable imagery existed previously.
Note though that sea ice extent was observed in the ’60s, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimbus_program#Sea_ice
Tonyb
You don’t do irony then?
Day before yesterday. Anyone else reminded of vanGogh by those color pict. at the top???
Starry Night?
Hurricaney Day?
Starnados in the wake of the moonado.
There’s always the RCP 8.5 scare story, “we’re headed for Climageddon” angle.
http://i63.tinypic.com/5tvpc0.png
“When did the ‘modern record’ begin?”
Last Thursday I believe.
I also meant to ask what the tidal range along that coast was and whether or not we are at a time of particularly high tides?
Here in the UK we have had a couple of storms which arrived at the worst possible time at the peak of a spring high tide. It makes a difference of 9 or 10 feet in this neck of the woods
Tonyb
A bit over 2.5 feet at Virginia Key.
Sixto
Thanks. So it will Make a difference if the storm hits at high tide but not a huge one. That’s a very small range
Tonyb
Indeed it is. Bathymetry of the Keys makes it so.
What a great image!
It immediately reminded me of the wonderful don Mc Clean song, ‘ Vincent’ which used the words starry night as a theme. On checking I had forgotten how deep the song was
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starrynightlyrics.html
Tonyb
That was the song that immediately came to my mind also when I saw that image of the Van Gogh painting.
It occurs to me that tidal the and geographic context of the storm is not really historically unprecedented, but the political and cultural context might be.
I swear, I think folk in the future will be writing books on this madness.
I’m surrounded by highly educated people that have lost their political and scientific minds.
The Watergate break-in didn’t do Richard Nixon in, it was his lying about it that did. Fess up and move on right away. Auger in and lose isn’t a good policy.
Eric is not not very graceful.
He screwed up and is too prideful to simply admit it.
The current reality does not have the distant Atlantic storm hitting land either.
The key to holes is to stop digging.
Eric seems to be a busy digger.
Eric Blake is just an Obama Era Sandinista pandering to his Obama Era Vietcong Bosses and Congressional budget committees.
He should turn in his B.S. Political Science degree and go back to school to and “earn” a real degree.
Haha
Not quite that bad. Has a Master’s Degree, with the late, great, sainted Bill Gray as adviser.
But clearly has fallen under the baleful influence of the NOAA trough-feeding consensus.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/qa/qa_201011_eric_blake.shtml
Presumably didn’t learn how to lie from Dr. Gray.
He didn’t learn how to lie from Dr. Bill Gray and neither, apparently, did he learn his science from Dr. Gray:
(Source: Alan Lammey, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/12/four-scientists-global-warming-out-global-cooling-in/ , quoted in WUWT 10th Anniv. anthology)