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When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane?
jamesl writes "Cliff Mass, a climate researcher at the University of Washington and popular Seattle blogger, asks, 'When did Irene stop being a hurricane? ... there is really no reliable evidence of hurricane-force winds at any time the storm was approaching North Carolina or moving up the East Coast. ... I took a look at all the observations over Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Not one National Weather Service or FAA observation location, not one buoy observations, none reach the requisite wind speed. Most were not even close. ... Surely, one of the observations upwind of landfall, over Cape Hatteras or one of the other barrier island locations, indicated hurricane-force sustained winds? Amazingly, the answer is still no.' Cliff supports his statement with data from NOAA/NWS/NDBC presented in easy to understand charts."
CNN had that fabu bar that was going bokers for 3 days straight! I know I saw lots of Hurricane force winds on that bar. Surely CNN wouldn't like???
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
Knowing when it wasn't a hurricane won't help those injured or killed, or fix the damage. Just someone interested in playing Monday Morning Quarterback....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Yes, it was a Bad Storm. Nobody is going to deny that. However, the media's over-hype and over-coverage of the storm could have a serious "boy who cried wolf" effect. I would hate to see people woefully under-prepared if and when the next "Katrina" arrives, due to lack in confidence in media storm reporting and forecasting. We really don't need to instill a mindset of "it's not going to be as bad as they say it is" in hurricane prone areas. That kind of thinking costs lives, but is none the less engendered by ratings hungry news networks over-hyping relatively weak storms like Irene.
Does it matter at what altitude the wind speeds are measured? The buoys and measuring stations are at or near ground/sea level... while the aircraft are considerably higher. I remember a local forecaster stating that he was seeing 70mph winds less than a mile up near Raleigh.
The competiton for ratings causes news services to exaggerate negative stories. A promo like "Large storm, not many hurt" is unlikely to draw as many viewers as "Killer Hurricane on the Way".
The severity of the recent East Coast earthquake was also greately exaggerated.
It gained hurricane status when people actually latched on to their monster-of-the-week and started paying attention to the media's FUD about just-another-storm.
It lost hurricane status when people got bored with it. Which, not coincidentally, happened right around the time people realized that the storm had passed and nothing more interesting than a few downed trees and some localized flooding had accompanied the Grim Reaper on his end-of-summer ride through the heavens.
Yep, a few people died. Flooding will do that, and if doesn't take a hurricane to do that (how many hurricanes does the Midwest get each year?). Tragic, but at the same time, unimpressive - 35 people? Wow. The "storm of the century" caused about half the number of deaths of one interstate bus accident.
And now I note with some amusement, the media has started trolling for flu season already, with "remember bird/swine flu" retrospectives. Fucking pathetic. Let's all just turn it off, and walk away.
You're still on that? Haven't people explained to you already a million times the difference between weather and climate?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
When a storm is rotating counter-clockwise, the strongest wind will be on the right side of the storm. Because the storm as a whole is moving forward and on the right side, the forward-motion of the storm as a whole coincides with the direction of the rotation of the storm.
Now, as the storm was on the east-coast of the USA and moving north, the highest wind speed would be on the east of the eye of the storm - over the sea.
However, CNN mentioned at some point when the storm was over New York, that it was downgraded. I'm not sure where exactly the eye was at that point. So, it may or may not have been a hurricane. In any case, however it was nowhere near a historic storm. I mentioned as much in one of my blog posts.
And watch this hurricane! Oh boy it's gonna be historic!
Now keep watching... keep watching... keep watching...
It's the difference between epidemiology and medicine, or between actuarial predictions and fortune-telling. I might be able to predict that 10% of a population will get a disease, or that 0.054% of 43 year old females in North Dakota will break their left femur this year, without being able to tell you which individuals it will be. There's no reason to assume that large-scale predictions entail small-scale ones.
.sig withheld by request
Irene had pressure that low across N. Carolina and into Virginia. Still a strong storm. High winds spread out over wider area.
I was watching the reports at www.wunderground.com Tropical Weather page, and Dr. Jeff Masters blog there.
You mean one is something that can't be predicted accurately, and the other one is something that can't be predicted accurately even into the past when there are knowns?
Yeah. Million times difference.
Om, nomnomnom...
And even if it was a hurricane at landfall, it's the first to hit the US in 3 years, which is unusual. Perhaps climate change is to blame for weakening our storms? Will this finally wake people up?
Glad to see others publicly noticing the wind speed discrepancies and general weakness of the storm.
Related to that is some local stations not only referred to it as a hurricane, but further stated that hurricane force winds extended out 125 miles from the eye when it was already very evident, even to many TV news reporters, some of who, that morning, on the air, characterized it as more akin to a Nor'Easter.
Makes some, including myself, wonder whether state and local governments, from pressure by the Feds, used the storm as a pretext to test shutting down entire mass transit systems and mass evacuations; not to see if it was possible, but what the public reaction would be, and the amount of compliance - reportedly, some local authorities, for people who refused to leave, were demanding them to provide their names and social security numbers.
Ron
Why? Of course it's an exact science. It has very exact language and as such I'm sure that the history of hurricanes in New York will lead them to the conclusion, that whatever changes happened to the climate in the 20th century, they prevented large hurricanes in New York.
There were four major Hurricanes cat 2-3 in the 19th century vs. just one major Hurricane in the 20th century (1938). The weaker storms like Irene are barely worth mentioning from an historic perspective.
Climate is the signal. Weather is the noise.
"It's an exact science! Everyone agrees on the conclusions
You must be off your rocker.
Geez, people assume we can predict everything [myway.com]. Weather prediction ain't an exact science.
Haven't you ever heard of margin of error? The National Hurricane Center publishes everything with error margins displayed right on a color chart... The hurricane fell well within their error bars. IIRC, it had a 10% chance reported for hurricane speed winds in South Jersey on Friday morning. Officials decided to evacuate based on that and the potential for flooding.
Climate scientists also have error bars - really, really wide ones that get even wider as you go into the more distant future. Thing is, everyone who has actually put the effort in to build a model in recent times comes away with the same conclusion - even their most conservative model still predicts anthropogenic warming.
Neither is an exact science. Some won't even credit either field with being a "science". But they do make fairly solid predictions within their stated margin of error more often than not. They give you your odds.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
When it was no longer convenient to describe it as such. Just like Pluto.
Late summer weekend with a crap economy? Little was lost economically by the shutdown
If you read the forecast discussions religiously (as I did, being directly in the path), you'd have noticed that the forecasts reflected the extratropical transition and dissipation of the hurricane, as well as the fact that the main threat was flooding, not wind. You'd also have noticed that (for example) the forecasts put the chance of hurricane-force winds in New York City at something between 1 and 10 percent. Mass seems to be saying NOAA should have written forecasts to reflect the weakening and dissipation of the hurricane, and they did. But for some reason he criticizes their handling of it. Or maybe he's just criticizing the way the media, Mayor Bloomberg, etc. didn't seem to look at the up-to-the-minute and actually quite accurate forecasts, and instead just went "PANIC AND RUN FOR YOUR LIVES".
His data is very interesting, but without a baseline for comparison it's not decisive. What wind speeds should we expect to see measured by those buoys in the average Cat 1 hurricane? The buoys are quite widely spaced and could miss the zone of highest winds, or they could be too close to the sea surface (the wind speed used to determine the category of a storm is supposed to be measured at 10 m), etc.
So what are the error bars on climate change? 1% every 1000 years? 100 years? 10 years? Because if a hurricane has 10% error bars 2 days in the future, I'd hate to see how accurate our predictions are for 100 years in the future. Especially since we are predicting human changes, which not only are not constant, but we have no idea where the human race is going in terms of technology. Hell in 100 years, we may not use any fossil fuels at all with or without government intervention.
I'm still not sold on the global warming bandwagon. I'm not dismissing it, but call me a denier if you must. What I'm even less sold on is if global warming will be a catastrophe. In fact, what are the error bars on that? Is it possible that global warming will be a good thing for mankind?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The answer is...
I was in Virginia Beach and had to keep looking out my door wondering when this storm of the century was coming. My Sat TV and Power stayed on throughout this "Hurricane". Despite supposedly dropping almost 10 inches of rain.
I watched this storm closely. The bottom line is it was expected to strengthen before landfall. I recall seeing predictions of 130-135 mph winds. That didn't happen. In fact, Irene kind of fell apart on the way to the Carolina coast, so the devastating storm the news machine had hyped up simply never materialized. That's why there was so much news coverage. It WAS expected to be big. Why didn't they start reporting on Irene falling apart and saying "Whoops, my bad..."? I have no idea.
That is news.
nope, when the hurricane force winds are over water, we call those "fish storms" and don't give a shit
When did Irene start being a hurricane? Looks like all the readings submitter found indicate it never was.
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.
No, but it might help to determine just WHY the storm was being hyped so much.
That's easy. Because NYC had a chance to be affected and that is where the news organizations are. Secondarily, no government official is going to take the chance of not reacting after the debacle that was Katrina. Anything that might affect NYC is apparently news - even when it isn't. When NYC gets weather that is rather typical where I live you'd think the world was coming to an end. I'm not looking forward to the day when a truly serious natural catastrophe affects NYC. We'll never hear the end of it.
It was a serious storm and needed to be taken seriously and it's probably better to over-react and be prepared than to brush it off. Nevertheless, the media attention was indeed a bit over the top.
It is a thought-provoking idea - "When" did Irene become a hurricane - and well worth my time to consider it. The US Geological Survey is an E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T source of information, and, in my humble opinion, criminally underfunded by our tax dollars (especially those companies that won't pay U.S. Taxes).
Use the following link inacoupladays
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/irene/coastal-change/updated-assessment.php
It screwed up my YARD!!!!!!!!
http://flyingmoose.com/uploads/irene.jpg
Just like New Yorkers get to giggle when those Southern folk shut down schools and stock pile supplies like survivalists because they got 2 feet of snow.
New Yorkers (the ones from NYC, not upstate) do that when there is 2 feet of snow. Southern folks shut down when there is 2 INCHES of snow.
Seriously, when I lived in a more southerly latitude, a quarter of an inch of snow would close every school within 15 miles of my house. They simply do not know how to deal rationally with significant amounts of snow. Where I grew up 1-2 feet within 24 hours was rather normal and I've seen as much as 72 inches in just three days. Despite that I didn't get a single snow day when I was in high school. Not one in four years.
The windspeed was not the source of damage, for the most part. The flooding was. It was not as bad as it could have been--the storm increased speed, so it was stationary for a shorter period of time and there was less rainfall than predicted--but it was still bad.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Why didn't they start reporting on Irene falling apart and saying "Whoops, my bad..."? I have no idea.
Because that doesn't happen. Heck, you see it with newspapers all the time. Inaccurate story runs on page 1. Corrections are on page 27, right next to the obituaries.
Occasionally, you'll see television media run a story about how the hype never appeared and how, perhaps, they shouldn't hype things quite so much. They'll promise not to, but the next time it comes around, they'll be right back out there again.
The part that always makes me laugh are the intrepid reporters out in the middle of the storm telling people that they shouldn't be out in the middle of the storm. Well, then, why are you out there?
Here are a counter-argument from comments on the blog:
mike_s said...
They presumably use Doppler radar, which can measure speeds throughout the system, instead of relying on point sources, which can't.
Who predicted this? I looked at the NOAA advisories and the forecast advisory made on Friday morning shows a possible windspeed of 95 KT, and the forecast advisory made on Saturday morning at 5AM EDT shows a prediction of 80 KT wind.
I looked back on Thursday morning at 5AM EDT shows a prediction of 100 KT winds (115 MPH). Here is the relevant section of the forecast discussion on Thursday:
A Hurricane Hunter Aircraft Investigating Irene A Few Hours Ago Found That The Central Pressure Had Dropped To 950 Mb. However...Flight-Level And Sfmr-Observed Surface Wind Data Supported A Current Intensity Of No More Than 100 Kt...And This Is Probably Generous. It Is Presumed That The Intensification Process Was Halted By An Eyewall Replacement Event As Suggested By Microwave Imagery And Aircraft Observations. Since The Environment Appears To Be Conducive With Weak Shear...Warm Waters...And An Upper-Level Outflow Anticyclone Over The Hurricane...The Official Forecast Shows Re-Strengthening Within A Day Or So. After A Couple Of Days...The Ships Guidance Shows A Significant Increase In Vertical Shear...So A Steady Decrease In Intensity Is Likely. However...Since Irene Has Such A Large And Intense Circulation...It Will Probably Be Rather Slow To Weaken. Given The Limitations In Our Ability To Predict Intensity Change...There Is Significant Uncertainty As To Just How Strong Irene Will Be When It Nears The Eastern And Northeastern U.S. Coast.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
So what are the error bars on climate change? 1% every 1000 years? 100 years? 10 years?
I'm not sure what the state of the art is right now - only that it has gotten progressively tighter over time. In the 70s, the models were just as likely to predict cooling as they were warming. By the 90s, even the most conservative models started to track towards warming, and now there is broad consensus across all models AFAIK.
I'm still not sold on the global warming bandwagon. I'm not dismissing it, but call me a denier if you must.
It's fine to be skeptical. I was skeptical in the 90s when there wasn't a scientific consensus. But I'm just an engineer, not a climate scientist - I depend on the expertise of others. If everyone who has ever taken the time to build a model comes to the same conclusion, and the only detractors are in different fields and/or have some vested interest in being detractors... well, that's good enough for me. Not for you? That's fine, too.
What I'm even less sold on is if global warming will be a catastrophe. In fact, what are the error bars on that? Is it possible that global warming will be a good thing for mankind?
Well, change is rarely a good thing in the short term. Even if it did something amazing like flood the Sahara, it would create a lot of wars in the short term as people were displaced and fighting for resources. But I don't think anything can be done - people are like locusts. We will burn every last drop of oil and every last nugget of coal - it is inevitable. We really need to spend more time talking about mitigation. So even though we might disagree on root cause, we might have room to agree on mitigation :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'm unsure why we should really care about what buoys floating in the ocean, directly at sea level, say about recorded wind speeds. Instead, I would consider what the radar indicated speeds were. The storm would not have been given a Category 1 rating without the requisite wind speeds being detected. I'll keep my tinfoil hat on the shelf for this one.
Here's some data Cliff Mass must have overlooked:
Here's a helpful map with data:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at201109.asp
Here are the National Hurricane Center reports:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/refresh/IRENE+shtml/120913.shtml?
* Note the Wind Speed Probability reports
They also provide this:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/085722.shtml?swath
The Wikpedia article is well-footnoted:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hurricane_Irene
This is undeniably true, but it comes from a rational fear of ice, too
There's a lot more daytime melt-and-refreeze once you get south of Virginia.
Here is the link to ORIN7 which shows winds hitting 70 knots and a central pressure of 28.50. Granted, the sustained winds show slightly below cat 1 at the surface, the winds were reported at 20 to 30% stronger at 1000 feet. And windspeed is not the only measure - central pressure is used too. 28.50 is on the border between cat 2 and 3. This storm was somewhat stillborn when it came to the winds.
Ha! Agreed. My favorite this time around was the reporter who went so far as to direct the camera at 3 young men crossing the street and calling them idiots on camera for doing exactly what he was doing, being out in a hurricane. Of course, they're quick to point out how they're "trained professionals". Come on guys, you're journalists. You're trained to ask questions and talk pretty. You're not swift water rescue or anything. Bonus points for the other guy who got right on top of the downed power lines and said that we shouldn't, and he was only doing it because he'd conferred with the power guys who assured him they were off. I bet trained power guys wouldn't screw around with downed power lines regardless of whether they were off or not unless they were actually fixing them.
People on the Internet should know better about finding reliable information. Informed experts, as opposed to sensationalist "journalists", were saying the issue was the sheer geographical size and what that implied for rainfall, not the intensity of the anticipated winds.
nothing more interesting than a few downed trees and some localized flooding
Your choice of media apparently isn't covering central Vermont and New Hampshire.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vermont-Flooding-2011/212455332141871?sk=photos
A bridge got taken out two towns over where the brook-like river rose over 30 feet. In a spring flood it might rise 5 feet.
Meteorologists might call it a hurricane or tropical storm based on an arbitrary delineation, but a Richter-like scale of effects would probably a better classification system.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And you complain about other people's projections. You might as well suggest that aliens will come and wisk us off to heaven instead.
Really? Suggesting we can migrate away from fossil fuels in 100 years is equivalent to aliens visiting earth? Think in 1911, when the Model T was the shiznit of cars. Did they know that there would be an explosion in vehicle traffic over the next century? Two breakthroughs could eliminate the vast majority of fossil fuel use extremely quickly. 1) Viable fusion power and 2) large capacity ultracapacitors. With both of those, electric would be plentiful and not produce any CO2 and pretty much every vehicle would be better off electric. In 100 years, I would hope we've made huge progress on both.
If you're going to posit that, then it'll be up to you to research it. You'd certainly be disrupting the lives of billions of people, so you're going to have to look for a really good upside.
I don't think you realize where we were 100 years ago. In 1911, there were approximately 1.6 billion people on the planet. Today there are close to 6.8. Billions of people are going to have their lives disrupted one way or another. Yes, we may lose some coastal territory, yes we may have more severe weather, yes the polar bears might die as the ice caps melt. On the upside, vast, truly vast, areas of land will be habitable that are today barren deserts. Think of Canada, think of Russia. Look at a globe and compare the land area near the equator with the land area near the poles. Ok, so we lost New Orleans, but we gained literally tens of millions of square miles. In addition to gaining land, there will be more fresh water, more farmland, and less death (cold kills far more than heat). All of which are better for people in general. I'd call that a decent upside. It's sure not all downsides, to suggest such is ludicrous.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
NOAA and/or the Weather Channel. I was checking both plus a local station numerous times a day. I've been watching this since it was first forecast to be coming to the US East Coast. For a day or two they were predicting landfall with wind speeds of 115 mph. As time got closer to actual landfall, Irene weakened instead of strengthened and those numbers came down.
Keep in mind, I'm not a meteorologist, it's just my neck of the woods and I love a good storm, so any time a tropical storm shows signs of landing in my backyard I start paying attention.
I am from the north and have lived in the south for nearly 30 years, yall are idiots when it comes to snow, but it really does not happen as much as everyone would like so its like a little holiday sometimes and that is cool.
ICE on the other hand, omfg every time I have been screwed on the road was in the south with ice. I know Canadians who laugh at me for wearing 2 shirts at -3F but wont drive on that shit, and the half dried up black ice and compacted ice parking lots getting a sun Zamboni for in time for rush-hour ... for days after? that will really start to piss you off after a month or 2, then its 74 and no one cares.
Well, change is rarely a good thing in the short term.
Well it's a good thing that climate change occurs in the long term then isn't it? You just walked right into that one... You are right, short term changes hurt, which is why most mitigation plans suck. They want things to change tomorrow expecting what may happen next year. All the mitigation we can do is meaningless if a volcano erupts in 10 years that causes mass cooling and then oh shit, we've gotta make it warmer.
At the end of the day, we have climate change. We have climate change because climate is NOT EVER CONSTANT. Whether or not we have anything to do with it, the climate will change. Colder, hotter, we need to prepare. Mitigation is not the answer, migration is. Human beings excel at several things. One of them as you pointed out is using fuel like it's going out of style. Another thing is adapting. We need to use the adaptation to our advantage. Migrate away from the coasts if they are disappearing. Migrate to higher latitudes if it is practical. Migrate to different fuels if it is economical.
I'm an engineer too, and I have faith that despite scientists telling us the sky is falling, we engineers are always a step ahead, finding solutions to tomorrow's problems today. I believe that humans can thrive in many climates, and I think that warmer is probably better in the long term. Looking at the history of life on this planet, the dinosaurs would tend to agree, warm is better. Ice ages suck.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
At 9:00 am Sunday morning, August 28, EDT. According to the Hurricane IRENE Advisory Archive. At that time, it was centered over New York City (it was 40 miles SSW of there an hour earlier). Until then, estimated and measured wind speeds made the system a hurricane.
If you want to dispute the accuracy of NWS current measurements and estimates, then research how they do it and dispute properly. They use recon aircraft, doppler radar, satellite imagery, balloons, and ships, in addition to buoys and automated surface observation systems, to measure and estimate wind speeds. If you want to dispute the NWS's predictions, then either learn meteorology and forecast models to prepare yourself, or compare past predictions to later observations. If you want to dispute the NWS's warning wording, then compare predicted conditions and their real world impact to the NWS's wording. If you want to dispute the media's hype, then compare their hype to the NWS's warnings, and have fun.
But do not ask such an amazingly easy to answer question like "When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane?" in order to stir provocation, without answering it. And do not look at some buoy and automated surface observation system data and claim there was no hurricane just from that.
Your choice of media apparently isn't covering central Vermont and New Hampshire.
This is America, we don't care about some foreign countries nobody's ever heard of before.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Yup. And 80% of that is all the accidents that happen. Nobody knows how to drive in the stuff. Then the tow trucks run into ditches trying to get to them. The emergency crews aren't trained to drive in it either, so they get there to save the tow trucks reeeal slow.
The 2-inch effect is really just a classic demonstration of our crippling national dependency on the automobile. Like construction on the 405 this year. It's no joke.
category ratings don't capture the real threat
this storm was huge, slow, and dumped tons of water. that's the damage and danger. the wind speed wasn't an issue
a fast small cat 3 would do far less damage
so the lesson is: we need to retire the category system as primary indicator of threat level to lives and property. we need a new metric. taking into account size, speed, volume of rain AND windspeed. not just windspeed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was in Cape Charles, Virginia, 25-35 miles from the center at one point, and saw a max wind speed of 46.5 knots.
In the south, it snows at night, and gets above freezing during the day. That snow partially melts by the afternoon, and then refreezes at night. In 15 years of living in Texas, the only snow I've ever driven on was in my driveway. From the alley to the office is one continuous sheet of 1-2" thick ice.
moox. for a new generation.
All the mitigation we can do is meaningless if a volcano erupts in 10 years that causes mass cooling and then oh shit, we've gotta make it warmer.
I think I should be more specific when I say "mitigation". I'm not proposing that we try to control the climate - only deal with the after-effects. Everything from upgrading seawalls to planning for food security. And of course as you say: migration.
In the US, even if a coastal city like New York went under, we would be fine after some economic pain and it wouldn't cause a war. Hell, even if the entire state of Florida had to pack it up, it would happen fairly slowly and we'd just have a big building boom. There might even be enough empty buildings around Vegas :)
What worries me are places barely eking out an existence with substance farming and not enough land per person, as is. Those places go to war over stuff like climate change, and we tend to get drawn into such things.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The problem with the south really is that people just don't think they can handle it. Well, some people choose not to handle it by being idiots. We've had several decent snow and ice storms in recent years here in North Carolina. Where I live, even after 8-10" of snow and sleet, the roads were plowed by the next morning (not to mention brining a day or two before). I live in a hilly neighborhood and I managed to drive on the ice pack just fine. The key is to not be a fucking idiot and pay fucking attention to what you are doing. There are, of course, legitimately dangerous road sections, but those can be avoided. Unfortunately, a lot of people think they can do 60 on ice because they have 4 wheel drive and that's why you see all the SUVs and sports cars off on the side of the road.
The hype machine, though, runs full force down here as well. I think since we have snowstorms more frequently here than NYC has hurricanes, the result doesn't end up being as big of a deal (the hype, not the storm). It's still really annoying. I especially hate hearing the common folk take a forecast for a 1-3" and turn it into "I heard we were supposed to get a foot!" at which point they flood the grocery stores to perform the ritual buying of bread and milk.
Uh, maybe because snow is so rare as to not require municipal investment in snow removal equipment? Maybe the money would be better spent on hurricane preparedness or flood control? No, no, no...snow is "normal" within the tiny confines of sjbe's mind, and therefore everywhere in the world should be able to deal with it. Lost is the irony that now that the shoe is on the other foot, New Yorkers are freaking out at not even a hurricane, but a mere tropical storm.
How about this: why don't you open a snow tire business in Birmingham and see how well you do?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I live in a rural area in the Ozarks of Arkansas. It is true that a very small amount of snow (to my upper midwest born/raised sensibilities) brings school to a crashing halt here. But it's not because people do not know how to deal rationally with snow. It's because there are no snow plows, no deicer, and, most importantly, no pavement.
When nearly every road has a significant slope and gravel only if you're very very fortunate, roads become nearly impassible with even a small amount of snow. At only two inches of snow, my neighbors (all of them) are unable to make it up the hill to the highway. When the school buses can not reach the students, and less than 10% of the students are in a position to get to school otherwise, there is just no point in holding school. So...my kids get far more snow days than they want. They've lost their Spring Break the last two years because of snow days...
BTW, did you know that the Honda Odyssey becomes a total sled with only two inches of snow? I've watched our Odyssey, parked on a relatively level spot on the driveway, decide to just slide of the drive SIDEWAYS, down the hill, and into the ditch. Then it's, "wait for the snow to melt" before working to get it unstuck.
Which was my original point (I just foolishly said feet instead of millimeters).
New York is in a similar boat for a tropical storm, things just aren't built in the simple ways that would handle them easily - since they aren't common enough to worry about.
Just like other areas aren't built to handle snow - since it isn't common enough to worry about.
Weather is notoriously difficult to predict more than a day or so in advance. The predicted paths of hurricanes (Cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere) are based on models that are updated continuously, but are only accurate to a few hours. So, anyone who thinks that the weather service made poor judgements and predictions is either a complete fuckwit or doesn't understand how difficult the job is, or both.
so the devastating storm the news machine had hyped up simply never materialized
not defending the media here, but by what measure wasn't it devastating? 3rd or 4th deadliest hurricane in 30 years... billions and billions of dollars in property damage... check out what it was doing to Vermont.
I swear there is some kind of contest going on here to see who could be the least impressed with the weather.
The Admin and the Engineer
Warning people to protect themselves in the face of a legitimate threat has unmeasurable value to society, it can save countless lives and reduce the actual property damage resulting from unpreparedness. Crying wolf just teaches people to ignore the warnings.
I remember when in 2004 (the year before Kathrina) I read in the news that the major of New Orleans had ordered a (voluntary) evacuation of the city. Checking in wikipedia, I see this was in preparation for Hurricane Ivan. When I saw that and read a bit about how bad the flooding risk was I thought, wow, I need to visit New Orleans before it goes under. By a combination of circumstances I ended up actually visiting the city in December that year.
However, the wikipedia page on Kathrina does not say anything about this "false alarm" as a contributing cause to the bad handling of Kathrina: the major again declared a voluntary, and then a mandatory evacuation, and Ivan even served as a useful excercise of "contraflow" for the evacuation. The problem it seems was not that people did not take the warning seriously, but that they had either nowhere to go or no way to get there.
In Pisa, Italy, where it snows once in every 5-10 years, usually with barely enough snow to stick to the ground for a few hours, that is enough to close all the schools for the day.
That's not for lack of salt or snow plows, however... I'm sure they don't have those ready, but it doesn't really matter, as it is not enough snow to cause disruption to road traffic anyhow. It's just that hey! it's snowing!
That's right, Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile smile smile! https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Pack_Up_Your_Troubles_in_Your_Old_Kit-Bag
In the UK it makes sense; seldom the populace of the United States of America can comprehend what it means to leave everything behind going to War and coming back to nothing.
All cows eat grass!
Did IQ's just drop while I was wasting my time watching the FOX news of weather, the Weather Channel? How is the parent a score 5? Insightful? "Just like New Yorkers get to giggle when those Southern folk shut down schools and stock pile supplies like survivalists because they got 2 feet of snow.". Wow, the discussions in this thread are polarized into North VS South, not unlike the earth quake last week was East VS West. I'm from Vermont and no one up here is is complaining. Dump 10 inches of rain ANYWHERE in the world in 24 hours and it will cause a crisis of some sort. We take care of ourselves. As to the topic of this tread about the storm force winds defining the levels of a storm, well, it might be time to redefine storm categories. It's just reciently been done with tornado's were had been judged by storm damage analyses by engineers after the storm has passed. "Most places that get tropical storms often enough don't build transportation systems that move millions of people below sea level with nothing preventing them from flooding. Just like most places that get snow don't not have snow plows and salt." How many houses are built in 100 year flood plains? 20% of homes in the US have flood insurance and they are not all in Vermont and New York City (the home of the other picante sauce).
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
According to noaa's graphic charts, they give 100% probability of hurricane winds just off the coast of North Carolina. Also check the surface wind history which claims sustained 74mph winds over NC and into VA.
Any small low pressure fronts would've turned it into a much nastier hurricane, instead of downgrading to a tropical cyclone. Imagine if, after Katrina, the president dropped the ball on this.
The preventable flooding of the Mississipi was a bigger deal than this storm and should have been a bigger story. The Mississipi floods this spring/summer were more significant than this storm and the government could have prevented them. The Army Corps of Engineers was tasked with flood control, yet they failed to release a sufficient amount of water from the upstream dams to allow them to control the runoff from the unusually heavy snowfall last winter. Several regional managers for the Army Corps of Engineers reported to the decision maker that they had extremely heavy snow in their region and that if something was not done there would be bad flooding when the spring snow melt came. The decision maker chose to follow the "book" on what water levels should be in the various dams rather than release extra water so as to make room for the snow melt. If the person responsible had listened to the regional managers, the flooding would have been significantly reduced (or perhaps even prevented), yet there was very little news coverage of this fact.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
One link that I read religiously when there's a storm: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html
Masters used to fly with the Hurricane Hunters, and his blog is one of the best. Go back and look over his assessment of the storm. Jeff was *never* that worried about the wind, and he explains what apparently has the news media baffled: Irene began an eyewall replacement cycle just before hitting NC, and never recovered.
When an eyewall replacement begins, the storm typically expands. In this case, it meant that Irene had a *HUGE* field of tropical storm-force winds, but only a small pocket of hurricane-force winds on the east side of the storm. Yes, it was a hurricane; just because dood can't find any buoys that support that doesn't mean that it isn't so. The hurricane hunters measured winds > 74 MPH, so it was a hurricane. The fact that winds > 74 MPH weren't recorded as having much land impact has nothing to do with the classification of the storm.
Now, I think the NHC kept the "hurricane" classification a bit longer than was justified, but they possibly did that because they KNOW that most people (especially the news media) focus on winds, instead of the REAL danger from a hurricane: flooding. Even if Irene had completely dissipated to little more than a weak tropical depression by the time it hit New Jersey, you'd still have major damage, power outages and loss of life just from the flooding.
The news media has NEVER understood that. They will invariably put some moron out in the wind with a camera, hoping to get an image of the guy being blown all over the beach. But the primary danger from Irene was flooding, as Masters points out repeatedly in his blog.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
The National Hurricane Center found that Irene was CATEGORY 3 off the Florida Coast, and running up the coast over the Gulf Stream. If you do your calculus properly, you have to plan for the fact that Irene could not help but remain a hurricane if (or when) it hits New York City. That would have been a disaster the likes of New Orleans (times ten, then times ten again). President Bush looked the fool by not taking precautionary measures; who could seriously blame President Obama for being Presidential?
CAT 3 (Florida): http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/gtwo/atl/201108281214/index.php?basin=atl¤t_issuance=201108281214
CAT 2 (NC) http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/gtwo/atl/201108270558/index.php?basin=atl¤t_issuance=201108270558
CAT 1 (New York) http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/gtwo/atl/201108260858/index.php?basin=atl¤t_issuance=201108260858
Check out the US Geological Survey in a couple more days to view the raw meterological data (usgs.gov)
Guanxi, your links are appreciated. Don't forget the US Geological Survey ( http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/irene ), they will make the raw data available in a few more days. It looks like the baby-faced politicians are making mockery of the serious science of weather forecasting in a very apparent attempt to defund and dismantle another of our "Crown Jewels". If an agency doesn't drop bombs, wreck havoc or kill people ("Let God Sort Them Out", to use the vernacular), these numbskull pols consider it a waste of tax revenue. President Bush defunded the USGS to such an extent that he refused to issue a Tsunami warning to Indonesia; I guess Hurricane and severe weather forecasting is next on the chopping block.
For me in Virginia, the damage continues to accrue at $30/day for gas in the generator. 48 hours after it hit, exactly half of all traffic lights in the county were dark, with only three places to even buy gas.
Is it a rule, that there's an exception to every rule?
Southern folks shut down when there is 2 INCHES of snow
True story: In the 1990s, Montgomery County, MD schools once closed because it might snow the next day.
I wouldn't put it past the weather channel, but local weather news is even worse. There is a weatherman in North Alabama that will issue his own warnings in order to scoop the other TV station's news show.
The weather channel is so useless that I just monitor NOAA weather and http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ website. I'll never forget the piece of shit reporter from TWC who made a sensational story after a hurricane in Gulf Shores, AL while parked in front of the only neighborhood with standing water. The hurricane had downgraded significantly prior to landfall, and the reporter must have had a need to juice up the story. Anyway there were only a total of 5 houses that had standing water in them, but the reporter gave the impression that it was a regional disaster in the making.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Wolf Blitzer, is that you?
Given the general agreement in this wee thread, I suspect you're quite alone, and therefore should just be dismissed as a mere ankle-biting troll. However, I'll give you a small taste of what you desire, since you're apparently either a fan of using Bing, or are completely incapable of using Google:
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=13672
They're rather typical for the region, and no, there was no massive CNN media hype blitz for that one - which was my entire fucking point, dear child.
Now kindly go back under your bridge and STFU.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
.. The hurricane planes measured hurricane force wind in one of the outer bands of the hurricane. The storm is classified as a hurricane if any area of the storm has hurricane force winds present. Those winds do not need to be over a populated area, near the eye of the storm, or even at sea level. They just need to be somewhere in the storm.
New Yorkers get hysterical during any earthquake for a good reason. Most of them are working 60 stories up in buildings that are 50 or more years old and are not built to withstand ANY kind of earthquake.
San Fran and LA are built to much more exacting specs because your cities have been knocked down so many times.
If a 7.0 earthquake hit NYC during a workday, it would be catastrophic -- I don't think there's a building in Manhattan that would be standing. You'd be talking about millions of people dead.
Remember Haiti? So many died there because every structure was poorly built. Yet, if that same level of earthquake had hit LA, chances are there'd be a lot less damage and significantly less loss of life.
Even worse is that Manhattan is surrounded by water. If something like Japan's recent quake hit off the east side of the city, the Tsunami would wipe NYC off the map. That wave in Japan traveled 6 miles inland. That's akin to starting on the east side of Manhattan, washing over the entire city, slamming through Hoboken, and not stopping until reaching Giant's Stadium in Seacacus.
Again, millions dead if it was to happen during a work day. Those not killed from the tumbling buildings will certainly drown.
The point is: the major cities along the East Coast are not prepared for natural disasters, and with everything built hodge-podge since the times of the colonists, it's still built only well-enough to get by given our climate, no one ever spends the extra money to think about safety - one of the many reasons so many died on 9/11
Of course, since you're living in a zone more likely to be rattled, give us an update after you've had your 9.0, and half of the West Coast is lying in ruins. Let us know how well you slept through that.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Certainly; we're in total agreement. I was merely responding to another poster who said that the south does not know how to deal RATIONALLY with significant amounts of snow.
It's rational to not purchase and maintain equipment that would get very little use, just as it is rational for the upper eastern seaboard to generally not worry about hurricanes.
Now, I live about 600 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, so it would be rational for me not to worry about hurricanes. Nevertheless, we had the remains of a major gulf hurricane come through here about 5-6 years ago. Even though it had reduced to tropical storm intensity, it caused a significant amount of damage. When I built my house, I insisted on using hurricane clips for the roof, and metal straps from the foundation to the first floor walls and between floors of the house, not because I expected that to protect us from a tornado (it won't) but to protect us from the periodic high winds we get here. I've lived here 8 years now, and we've had 70+MPH straight line winds on numerous occasions.
The hurricane clips were cheap insurance.
The moment it lost its eye wall.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The tracking data at
http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2011/IRENE/track.dat
shows
ADV LAT LON TIME WIND PR STAT
32A 41.80 -73.20 08/28/12Z 65 963 HURRICANE-1
33 41.40 -73.70 08/28/15Z 50 966 TROPICAL STORM
about 60 miles north of NYC
--
Times have not become more violent, they have just become more televised.
I live in Cary (Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees) NC. All them Yankees think they can drive on our 2" of snow. They're the ones getting pulled out of ditches. All the locals know to stay home. You can't drive on our 2" of snow, 'cause it ain't snow. It's ice, with just a slight amount of sun-melted liquid water on top. There is NO measurable traction between the tire and the slicked ice. Zero. None. Nada. It not like up north where the ice freezes solid and stays that way.
I got home early before it really got started, but the worst weather traffic I've ever seen was a few winters back when there was just barely a 1/8" sheet of ice left on the roads. Nothing could move.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
In case you ever wondered if the corporate news is just pure propaganda, apologies for the establishment and last, but not least, explosive, worthless "breaking news", like Irene. This is the US corporate news fulfilling its institutional role; Distract you while the US business elite steal your money and changes laws to make stealing from/spying on you easier, then apologize when they do. Hope you enjoyed the hurricane and Casey Anthony coverage! Didn't cost anything but freedom and money.
...are the people who have power. From those of us that STILL do not have power (this includes myself, with an ETA from BGE of FRIDAY): go fuck yourselves.
The wind speed and classification doesn't fucking matter. What does matter is the amount of DAMAGE the storm left in it's wake.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I never said that ultracaps and fusion were a certainty. But I would posit that they are far more likely than an alien visit. Fusion reactions already exist, it's just a matter of harnessing the energy. Ultracapacitors already exist, it's just a matter of making them larger. Aliens might exist, but we've had no evidence, no communication, and indeed if light speed is the galactic speed limit, it is likely that they wouldn't even bother visiting.
My point is that I am not banking on technological miracles in the future, but rather technological advancement. As technology improves, it will use less power, be more useful, and use less materials than current technology. That is not some pipe dream, that is based on development since the industrial revolution.
And as far as your claims about the negatives and positives about global warming, I have admitted there will be problems (which you kind of ignored since you said that I made a claim of only positives). Yet you dismissed any possibility of an upside at all. I say there will likely be more livable land area, which seems pretty reasonable considering the amount of land that is currently frozen, and you dismiss it with "they could just as likely be "boiling deserts". There will still be snow with global warming, there will still be glaciers. I'd guess that most climate scientists would agree with that. They would probably also agree that large landmasses would get warm enough to live in with significant warming. However, despite your insistence that I produce facts instead of guess, there don't appear to be any major studies of the net gain (or loss) of arable land given a certain temperature change. Hmm, maybe climate scientists should start working on that rather than continue to tweak their computer models. But that might produce a positive effect of global warming, and we can't have that now can we? Your whole world view would be shattered!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Having gone without power because of storms myself, my thoughts are with you.
Maybe you can amuse yourself by keeping a count of how many times you walk into a room and flip the light switch without even thinking about it. :)
(No, it doesn't help a lot, but it helps take your mind of things at least a little bit.)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
BTW, did you know that the Honda Odyssey becomes a total sled with only two inches of snow?
Strong possibility it is due to the tires you use. Odyssey's are pretty common around here and they do ok in the winter. Where I live I'd put on a set of snow tires. They make an amazing difference especially for cars that normally don't do well in sloppy conditions. I have a little sports car (light weight, front engine, rear drive) that without snow tires becomes seriously toboggan-esqe. With snow tires it is actually not bad. Not going to mistake it for my 4x4 truck but certainly fine 99% of the time.
If you are living next to a river, then you should consider yourself on a flood-plain. Beyond that only historical records will be able to help you or talking to neighbours.
Actually having a site that shows the historic floods in various places around the world using Google Maps, could really be handy.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I've found the Michelin HydroEdge to be a great tire for holding the road in dry and wet conditions. But they proved to be absolutely the worst tire I've ever used for snowy conditions.
Seems to be that a lot of the good wet tires are absolute crap in snow. Not sure why but seems to be common.
I used to live not far from the Ozarks believe it or not so I understand your challenge. Hard to justify chewing up a set of snow tires for the piddling amount of snow that usually shows up. A good set of all weathers and (just in case of emergency) a set of tire chains seems to be the best compromise.
Guess a few billion = Little.
Lost business, lost travel money with airports shutdown, lost tourism (Late summer weekend generate this), just to name a few sources.
Just another day in Paradise