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SNE Hurricane Thread


snowNH

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Well that may change soon. If you would have gone to the conference, you would have seen that the NHC is currently discussing make variable cones for different parts of the basin and models. This isn't a unique northeast tropical storm/hurricane problem. Generally, everyone who is in the cone receives the watches and warnings. EM needs a significant amount of time for mobilization of assets and evacuations. If this hurricane would have happened 10 years the watches warnings would have been much bigger in scope, and I think there's something to be said for that.

sorry had to work

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That's pretty stupid then. Having tropical storm warnings up and then reading NWS statements about sustained tropical storm force winds when it's abundantly clear there will be little more than a 25 mph gust is infuriating.

I think you know how it works because we discussed this last year. The actual NHC forecast was quite good. Since parts of SNE fell into the cone, watches and warnings are issued. The hurricane center will 2/3 of the time fall within the forecast cone for a given time period, based on the latest 5-year track error for the Atlantic Basin. There is high FAR for tropical watches and warnings.

It's nuts how many more people would have been watched/warned just in 2000.

OFCL_ATL_trk_error_trend_noTDs.gif

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I think you know how it works because we discussed this last year. The actual NHC forecast was quite good. Since parts of SNE fell into the cone, watches and warnings are issued. The hurricane center will 2/3 of the time fall within the forecast cone for a given time period, based on the latest 5-year track error for the Atlantic Basin. There is high FAR for tropical watches and warnings.

It's nuts how many more people would have been watched/warned just in 2000.

Yet for SNE the NHC forecast was a trainwreck. If an emergency manager or media met took their forecast verbatim they'd look like fools.

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I think you know how it works because we discussed this last year. The actual NHC forecast was quite good. Since parts of SNE fell into the cone, watches and warnings are issued. The hurricane center will 2/3 of the time fall within the forecast cone for a given time period, based on the latest 5-year track error for the Atlantic Basin. There is high FAR for tropical watches and warnings.

It's nuts how many more people would have been watched/warned just in 2000.

OFCL_ATL_trk_error_trend_noTDs.gif

There's no question the tracks have improved. The problem up this way, is that the nw sides of these storms are just entirely different as compared to how they behave in a subtropical or tropical environment. It's probably just us being picky because we know climo for these, but the winds in general are very lackluster, unless the storm is close enough, or strong enough. There tends to be an overuse of watches and warnings here, but I understand why they do it. The problem is that the public has no clue and will quickly call a bust when the storm ends up giving 20kt winds.

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Yet for SNE the NHC forecast was a trainwreck. If an emergency manager or media met took their forecast verbatim they'd look like fools.

How so?

Was the NHC actually forecasting hurricane force winds for anyone? Tropical storm winds for anyone? I looked at the NWS forecast and don't remember seeing anyone with those conditions forecasted. The job of the EM is too prepare for the worst.

I think only 20 or 25% of people in the hurricane warning actually get hurricane conditions.

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How so?

Was the NHC actually forecasting hurricane force winds for anyone? Tropical storm winds for anyone? I looked at the NWS forecast and don't remember seeing anyone with those conditions forecasted. The job of the EM is too prepare for the worst.

I think only 20 or 25% of people in the hurricane warning actually get hurricane conditions.

The "hurricane warning" or "tropical storm warning" means those conditions are expected.

The NWS statements were referring to sustained tropical storm force winds.

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At 5pm, on Sept 1st. Hurricane watches are issued for the Cape and the Islands, TS watches are issued to NYC. The cone of uncertainty cuts through central LI to western CT through ORH.

At 5am, on Sept 2nd, Tropical Storm Watches are upgrade to Tropical Storm Warnings for central/western LI. The cone of uncertainty has shifted slightly east but remains through western LI to just east of ORH. The NHC forecast point is only about 25 miles SE of Nantucket.

At 11am, on Sept 2nd, most of the short of CT gets upgraded to TS Warnings. Eastern MA and the Cape and Islands are upgraded to Hurricane Warnings. The NHC forecast point is just off the SE Coast of Nantucket.

At 11am, on Sept 3rd, mainland E MA is dropped for Hurricane Warnings, and the Cape and Islands still have them. NHC track is about 30-40 miles SE of Nantucket.

At 11pm, on Sept. 3rd, Earl makes it's CPA at about 80 nm SE of Nantucket.

I think it's important to keep in mind, that when the hurricane warnings were issued, the area where they were issued was completely within the cone of uncertainty. Warnings must be issued 24 hours prior to the possible/expected onset of tropical storm conditions. At 36 hours, the average is 79 nm. From a rough calculation, I believe the NHC center point was only about 65 to 70 nm from Plymouth, MA.

The highest the hurricane force probabilities ever got was 30-35% for Nantucket. TS force probabilities were over 90% for Nantucket.

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Here is the best part of Earl from weatherwiz in 35 knot winds

Holy crap was that pretty awesome! For the first time ever doing something like that I had an incredible time. Ineedsnow and I left West Hartford around 7:30 AM and got to Chatham at around 10:30-10:45 AM. The ride was incredible smooth, zero traffic at all. When we first got there we had a band come through with some torrential downpours and then it didn't rain again until sometime after 7:00 PM. The winds starting gradually increasing by like 2:00 PM then by 4:00-5:00 PM they became sustained in the lower to middle 20's with some gusts near 30 m.p.h.

We also got fogged in a few times, at times the fog was dense you couldn't even see the water. Te waves didn't get bad either, you could hear them though from out in the ocean which was pretty cool though...we even saw a few seals.

After 7:00 PM though that's when things become more fun and the heavier wind and the stronger winds arrived. Being pelted by heavy rain with winds in the 30-35 mph range and gusts up into the 50's was awesome, felt like sleet except it stung a little bit more. They had some people from CBS6 in NY measuring winds and I think they got some pretty decent gusts.

I was a little unprepared though clothing wise. I wore shorts yesterday and didn't even think of how cold I would feel being soaked...I was freezing so from about 10:15 PM to 10:45 PM I sat in the car and when the height of the storm came I went back outside.

I can't wait to do that again! It was so much fun. I went back and read all the posts about me and they were [retty funny :lol: I just woke up like an hour ago...I was pretty exhausted. I stayed up all night Thursday then didn't go to bed until around 5:45 AM this morning, and I only sleep about a total of 12 hours of sleep from Monday night through Thursday morning.

It was a total blast though, next time though I will be wearing much more clothing.

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Problem is the public doesn't look at nhc wind probs....it's one of those things where the product for public consumption doesn't imply the uncertainty in the forecast. It's a challenging issue.

No they don't. I also wish the NWS had some more say as to what the local call should be with watches and warning, as they are the ones that understand the climo for these things. Putting up warnings to Hull was way overboard. We even talked about that in the earl thread.

I don't go against the watch when it was MH Earl, as there was still some disagreement with Intensity/Track.

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Problem is the public doesn't look at nhc wind probs....it's one of those things where the product for public consumption doesn't imply the uncertainty in the forecast. It's a challenging issue.

right, I get that. It's tough because as a met I happen to know how high the FAR is for TS warnings and hurricane warnings and I wouldn't even expect those conditions while under it. However, there is fine line because if you start saying the chances of hurricane force winds actually verifying are 20%...then they just won't prepare for it.

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Problem is the public doesn't look at nhc wind probs....it's one of those things where the product for public consumption doesn't imply the uncertainty in the forecast. It's a challenging issue.

We talked about this last year is that I was pretty critical of how the state emergency management dealt with the storm. With the tropical storm warnings up they immediately were holding news conferences and telling towns to expect sustained winds between 40-60 mph, power outages, storm surge, and inland flooding. Basically they rolled all the risks of a TS warning into a certainty even though most of that was never going to happen here in CT and it seemed very clear we wouldn't even get a glancing blow.

It was a much more challenging situation on the Cape and Islands where a subtle change in track would have had a much bigger impact.

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Damn you know it alls, :scooter: Local mets nailed this, public was only slightly amused, no one panicked but the state went over the top. Good practice I guess. I get the feeling TV Radio bosses do not totally trust their own hired guns, there was a lot of media on the coast filming 4 foot waves in 20 MPH winds.

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Damn you know it alls, :scooter: Local mets nailed this, public was only slightly amused, no one panicked but the state went over the top. Good practice I guess. I get the feeling TV Radio bosses do not totally trust their own hired guns, there was a lot of media on the coast filming 4 foot waves in 20 MPH winds.

You are almost lapping socks as worst poster on the board

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No they don't. I also wish the NWS had some more say as to what the local call should be with watches and warning, as they are the ones that understand the climo for these things. Putting up warnings to Hull was way overboard. We even talked about that in the earl thread.

I don't go against the watch when it was MH Earl, as there was still some disagreement with Intensity/Track.

I think when the NHC warnings were issued, the center point forecast was about 95 nm from Hull. From a pure statistical perspective, there is 2/3 of a chance of being inside the cone...while there is a 1/6 of a chance of it being outside of the cone on the left side. If the NHC forecast was more perfect and showed Earl going just outside the benchmark....warnings would have been significantly more limited.

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Damn you know it alls, :scooter: Local mets nailed this, public was only slightly amused, no one panicked but the state went over the top. Good practice I guess. I get the feeling TV Radio bosses do not totally trust their own hired guns, there was a lot of media on the coast filming 4 foot waves in 20 MPH winds.

what exactly are you trying to add here?

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I think when the NHC warnings were issued, the center point forecast was about 95 nm from Hull. From a pure statistical perspective, there is 2/3 of a chance of being inside the cone...while there is a 1/6 of a chance of it being outside of the cone on the left side. If the NHC forecast was more perfect and showed Earl going just outside the benchmark....warnings would have been significantly more limited.

Yeah no one is doubting the numbers... the problem is there is no way to express uncertainty in the current watch/warning process and little room for maneuvering.

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Yeah no one is doubting the numbers... the problem is there is no way to express uncertainty in the current watch/warning process and little room for maneuvering.

yeah, I understand. But from a social perspective, how do you issue warnings and then say...well you really have only a 20% chance of getting hurricane winds?

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yeah, I understand. But from a social perspective, how do you issue warnings and then say...well you really have only a 20% chance of getting hurricane winds?

Well I think you first need to get rid of a cone that's based on historical performance of track errors and not forecaster confidence. Some storms should have much larger cones than others. I also think that issuing a warning or watch just because someone is in a "one size fits all" cone is sort of silly... particularly at this latitude when storms become so lop sided.

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Well I think you first need to get rid of a cone that's based on historical performance of track errors and not forecaster confidence. Some storms should have much larger cones than others. I also think that issuing a warning or watch just because someone is in a "one size fits all" cone is sort of silly... particularly at this latitude when storms become so lop sided.

You are aware the NHC is addressing this issue and seriously looking into alternatives for NE storms versus Caribbean/Gulf cyclones.

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