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Hurricane Dorian [Merged]
- Thread starter MacNut
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Exactly! The NWS has the imposible task of keeping an often brain-dead American public informed about life-threatening conditions that need to be reduced to a single social-media shared infographic. Even if the NWS gets it exactly right, yet the storm strays slightly west (but well within the cone of probability), they get blaimed because someone stays in their beach house and dies. Or, the NWS gets it exactly right, yet the storm strays slightly east (but well within the cone of probability), they get blamed because a bunch of people were inconvienienced for a few days by evacuating.
In addition to the imposible job that NWS is tasked with, they do so using old tools (computing and satellite) because our president and congress don't respect science. It would be nice if we had a well-funded NOAA/NWS instead of relying on models from Europe for these no-win predictions.
Between GOES-16 and -17, which are operational as GOES-East and -West respectively and not just vastly improved over their predecessors but also among the best weather-surveillance satellites in the industry, and upgrades to WSR-88D radars, which are aging but currently undergoing extensive nationwide maintenance to extend their service life…the NWS is in a good position and stretching its dollars to deliver the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people based on what can realistically be deployed and when.
We don’t “[rely] on models from Europe.” If we did, we wouldn’t have invested in the GFS with the FV3 dynamical core; we’d have just discontinued it and used the Euro for all our global modeling needs. After all, why spend money maintaining and operating a weather model if it’s never used? Ultimately, the Euro gets far more credit than it deserves — it is still just a set of equations — and while most models have handled Dorian badly including both the GFS and Euro, Dorian has actually been handled better by the GFS (post-FV3) than the Euro. Consistently. Not to mention other major U.S. modeling advances like the HRRR and more recently Warn-on-Forecast, which shows tremendous promise to push tornado warning lead times closer to an hour and possibly beyond.
Sure, folks in the NWS would love to have some shiny, expensive new toys like a nationwide MPAR deployment, and they deserve more funding to make it happen, but they’re in great shape to continue doing their (difficult!) job and doing it well while significant changes are made to better reflect how people receive and respond to their products.
Reminds me of Hurricane Charley when it was suppose to hit Tampa but hit much further south of Florida.
Of course the opposite side of Florida but still.
While NHC is sticking to its guns on Dorian’s center (again, just its center) remaining offshore for now, the chances that it directly hugs the coastline or makes landfall in Florida seem to have gone up considerably tonight. I’d say it’s around a coin-toss at this point which route it chooses.
And truth be told, I have a bad gut feeling about it that I hope is wrong.
Sometimes the model trend is more important than the model guidance, and that trend has been pronounced and to the west.
I'm really concerned about the lack of warnings and evacuations, and it'll be a lot worse than expected. I really hope I'm wrong though.
If you count Sandy, it made landfall around Atlantic City. Technically wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall, but it had the wind speed of one.
NHC has so far done a fine job of warning people in Florida that they’re far from being out of the woods. Whether those warnings are being adequately communicated and responded to is my main concern.
Oh don’t worry - I am all prepared and ready for whatever’s coming.
From what I’m seeing this morning we’re all praying this gap between two high pressure ridges is enough to suck this thing north so it stays off shore. All the news channels are saying the consensus keeps this off shore but it’s still too close for my liking. Seems like hurricane Matthew type damage no matter what. Matthew caused $10B of damage and took 47 lives in the US.
Katrina’s eyewall (as @max2 specified) actually stayed just east of New Orleans.
Guess I should clarify that Katrina more directly impacted coastal Mississippi, which is fairly heavily populated, but I wouldn’t necessarily call any place there a “major city” as requested.
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Correct, but that had nothing to do with the eyewall and far more to do with Katrina’s bonkers storm surge and infrastructure failures.
They asked if an eyewall has impacted a major city before. Katrina’s not a case of that.
Isn’t it true that of the two most costly hurricanes (Katrina and Harvey) most damage was water not wind?
That’s true of most hurricanes, period. Water also leads to far more casualties than wind does.
A combination of broader impacted area and, for much of that area, worse impacts than wind.
The deadliest part of a hurricane is storm surge and inland flooding from rain.
