Hurricane Ian

[mappy]

3 minutes ago, gymengineer said:

I would guess so too, but so much of the discussion in the last couple of pages seemed to be around decision making based on the NHC’s forecasted track. 

I get that, and IMO, I thought NHC did fine other than the landfall further north before they adjusted back to south of Tampa. Lee County should have started evacuations over the weekend. 

NHC could have a perfect forecast and spread their message far and wide on social media, but unless local news reports it verbatim, there will be information lost between one agency to another. its a group effort from NHC communication to emergency management, who communicates to mayors/governors, who communicates to the public. A breakdown in any of those handoffs will trickle down to those on the ground who choose to stay behind instead. 

[KChuck]

36 minutes ago, twister4999 said:

Agreed. And perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t believe this was some of their better work. Sure, some of their early forecasts were spot on, but after that there were major shifts. I guess I’m just not tooting their horn as much as others. Did the best they could of course, but yeah this wasn’t what I would call great forecast verification. Their forecasts probably lead to people being put in a rough spot after evacuating south from Tampa ultimately putting themselves in the strike zone. Apologies if this belongs in the banter thread. 

I think that the NHC is between a rock and a hard place forecasting canes coming up the Florida coast. Kind of reminds me of NOAA mets trying to forecast snowstorms coming across the mountains into North Carolina. You never know which way they will bounce kind of like a pin ball machine. There's a big difference between dealing with a snowstorm vs a cat 4-5 hurricane. There were a lot of timing variables with Ian as far as that front coming down from the north not to mention land interactions. And no one, not even the blog experts, forecasted Ian strengthening the way it did once past Cuba. Once that occurred all of the dynamics surrounding Ian changed dramatically putting the NHC into doing their best to save lives and not spread needless fear. Overall, I think that they did a good job with what they had to deal with.  

[Wild Weather Monger]

3 minutes ago, mappy said:

I doubt the general public is pulling up NHC online to see the cone, etc. They are watching local news to get their information. So if local media doesn't harp on the seriousness of it, it doesn't matter what NHC does. The general public won't know any better. 

IDk.  When have local or nationional news NOT harped on the seriousness of the situation?  One could argue the "boy who called wolf effect" that accompanies so many storms is the culprut. 

[marsman]

23 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

I think it's safe to say we won't be seeing another Ian ever. Have to be getting low on I names at this point. 

 

20 minutes ago, olafminesaw said:

Gotta start pulling out all the obscure Arabic names 

I say we go back to using the Greek Alphabet. If we go over, use AA, AB, AC, etc.

[Wmsptwx]

31 minutes ago, Tezeta said:

We don’t fund education, especially in hurricane prone states. These are the same places that are told the media is full of lies and that things like sea level rise and juiced hurricanes are a myth.  It’s getting worse and worse. Expect more disasters like this where people don’t listen and just yap on social media about their surprise neighborhood destruction. 

5 bunned by a bunch of dummies, but doesn’t stop this from being correct.

[mappy]

2 minutes ago, Wild Weather Monger said:

IDk.  When have local or nationional news NOT harped on the seriousness of the situation?  One could argue the "boy who called wolf effect" that accompanies so many storms is the culprut. 

I am sure it happens. I am not in FL so I have no idea what local news was saying when compared to NHC. But I do know there have been instances locally in my area where there was a breakdown of sorts from Gov Agencies to local agencies and the media and people were 'caught off guard' and blamed NWS for failure to communicate the risks. 

[WxSynopsisDavid]

31 minutes ago, MANDA said:

As bad as some of these pictures are I don't think this is the worst of it.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11261707/Monster-Hurricane-Ian-devastates-Florida-leaving-2million-without-power-trapped-homes.html

Yeah…..we aren’t seeing the worst of it. This is going to be like some of the high-end canes in the past. Whereas we don’t see the worst until like the Day 3 range when they start to get to those areas.

[Ed, snow and hurricane fan]

I assume the FSU Super Ensemble is no more?  It was a model that 'learned' from past biases shown in various models and then weighted the models that performed the best highest is creating the ensemble.  I get the impression the TVCN is just an ensemble.  I could be wrong.

[floridapirate]

15 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

I don’t. 
 

i just gave him 3 quick examples that were every bit as bad that ranged from 50-to almost a 100 yrs ago. Those storms were juiced too.  
 

And let’s go back to the 1950’s and early 1960’s….hurricanes everywhere..and all over New England at that.  

I think the point is that its lazy to characterize every strong storm, every heatwave, every strong winter storm as climate change related.  And that is a fair point.

[NJwx85]

Ian is now fully back over water, at least in terms of the center. Already some deeper convection starting to fire near the center.

[mappy]

Just now, floridapirate said:

I think the point is that its lazy to characterize every strong storm, every heatwave, every strong winter storm as climate change related.  And that is a fair point.

climate change wasn't the point at all. distrust in the media was the point. 

[SnoSki14]

2 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

5 bunned by a bunch of dummies, but doesn’t stop this from being correct.

It's 100% correct which is why everyone's so triggered. They don't want to face that reality. 

But my pushback is that storms like this have happened before so any isolated event needs to be looked at carefully and not lumped into a broader narrative.

I think it's honestly more concerning that people continue to build heavily in obvious death trap regions like Cape Coral. How is that crap even legal. 

[Hoosier]

16 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

I don’t. 
 

i just gave him 3 quick examples that were every bit as bad that ranged from 50-to almost a 100 yrs ago. Those storms were juiced too.  
 

And let’s go back to the 1950’s and early 1960’s….hurricanes everywhere..and all over New England at that.  

I'd argue that we are seeing a trend toward higher precip amounts in tropical systems.  That doesn't mean it will happen with every storm, but the frequency of absurd rainfall totals seems to be increasing.

[NeffsvilleWx]

43 minutes ago, olafminesaw said:

To be fair, Ian never once strayed outside the cone as far as landfall point (looking back at the graphics archive). I think there's a lot to be done in terms of communicating probability of different on the ground impacts. The general public has a hard time grasping what to expect.

 

Communicating risk is a huge part of it.

 

33 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

 the earlier posts of just warning the whole cone would do far more harm than good.

 

I'm not saying this to be a smartass -- do you have any hard data or studies to support this? Genuinely curious. My opinion and experience (which doesn't mean a thing) is that the majority of people will react reasonably given they understand the situation they're facing, and the outliers will always do whatever they want, they're effectively unreachable. But I'm absolutely open to challenging and changing that position if warranted.

[Drummer]

at what point does the banter thread come into play around here?

[Akeem the African Dream]

20 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

No! It’s not getting worse. Are you for real??  
 

So what about the Labor Day 1935 monster Caine in Florida??  Or the monster that destroyed SNE in 1938?  Oh wait…what about Camille 53 yrs ago?  
 

Just stop with that complete BS.  Disastrous storms happen from time to time, and in different places around the country and the world.  It’s always been that way, and it always will. Thats it in a nutshell.  

the 1938 SNE storm wasn't even tropical at landfall

[KChuck]

54 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Lol when you always go worst case scenario, sometimes you’re right.

A la a case of the blind squirrel finds a nut now and then

[StantonParkHoya]

1 minute ago, Drummer said:

at what point does the banter thread come into play around here?

Yeah, where are the admins?

[FPizz]

1 minute ago, floridapirate said:

I think the point is that its lazy to characterize every strong storm, every heatwave, every strong winter storm as climate change related.  And that is a fair point.

Live near the ocean, it is fair to expect a big storm to possibly destroy your life no matter where you are for the most part.  No different than the people sipping coffee right now living on fault lines on the west coast.   It is playing with fire no matter what.

[NJwx85]

Should we blame the hurricanes from colonial times on global warming too? 

These storms have gotten worse because people are refusing to listen to warnings and evacuate. The surge is the killer. We saw it with Katrina, Sandy and now likely Ian. Floridaians especially have become complaicent because luckily major hurricane strikes are infrequent.

[forkyfork]

21 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

I don’t. 
 

i just gave him 3 quick examples that were every bit as bad that ranged from 50-to almost a 100 yrs ago. Those storms were juiced too.  
 

And let’s go back to the 1950’s and early 1960’s….hurricanes everywhere..and all over New England at that.  

do you think this didn't contribute to ian's strengthening right before landfall? come on

[mryanwilkes]

3 minutes ago, Akeem the African Dream said:

the 1938 SNE storm wasn't even tropical at landfall

It was a Cat 3 hurricane at LF. Was previously a Cat 5.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20140925140913/http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/

[forkyfork]

this totally isn't contributing to stronger storms 

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, NeffsvilleWx said:

 

Communicating risk is a huge part of it.

 

 

I'm not saying this to be a smartass -- do you have any hard data or studies to support this? Genuinely curious. My opinion and experience (which doesn't mean a thing) is that the majority of people will react reasonably given they understand the situation they're facing, and the outliers will always do whatever they want, they're effectively unreachable. But I'm absolutely open to challenging and changing that position if warranted.

Well obviously we have never really done that, so no. But think about it. Imagine warning a whole cone with 10s of millions of people needing to evacuate when maybe 10% experience hurricane conditions worthy of evacuating. The congestion on the highways......where are these people going to stay and go to? Who can accommodate such a mass exodus? 

 

And then there is the fall out regarding boy whole cried wolf syndrome.

That is not science at all. 

[SnoSki14]

Just now, NJwx85 said:

Should we blame the hurricanes from colonial times on global warming too? 

These storms have gotten worse because people are refusing to listen to warnings and evacuate. The surge is the killer. We saw it with Katrina, Sandy and now likely Ian. Floridaians especially have become complaicent because luckily major hurricane strikes are infrequent.

The complacency and hubris is the killer. Yeah let's just build a city partially underwater. Let's build floating neighborhoods in a known hurricane region. 

But blocking patterns and warmer sea surface temperatures have elevated surge/flooding. Hurricanes peaking before landfall like Michael was unheard of. 

[Wild Weather Monger]

1 minute ago, mappy said:

I am sure it happens. I am not in FL so I have no idea what local news was saying when compared to NHC. But I do know there have been instances locally in my area where there was a breakdown of sorts from Gov Agencies to local agencies and the media and people were 'caught off guard' and blamed NWS for failure to communicate the risks. 

I'm not in Florida either so IDK what the local news was saying.  But having lived in SE Louisiana most of my life, local news and government always trumpeted the worse possible scenario.  So much so that when the big one actually did come, many were shocked at what the real deal can bring.

I think social media plays a part in this too.  How many times have we all rolled our eyes at people posting those 2' snowstorm 5-day model runs on Facebook and such that rarely verifies?  Or the 200mph 3K NAM for a hurricane? 

[jm1220]

2 minutes ago, Akeem the African Dream said:

the 1938 SNE storm wasn't even tropical at landfall

Not to go too far down this rabbit hole but “not tropical” doesn’t make it less severe. The most devastating part of any storm tropical or not is the surge, and “not tropical” Sandy was horrendous on that end as was 1938 and Fiona which just hit Canada. That’s another bias people need to get out of their head. 

[forkyfork]

this shouldn't be allowed

[TPAwx]

WRT to the next significant TC threat to Tampa Bay metro, sure there is a "cry wolf" variable but most people are able to understand imminent threats to life and property and will act accordingly, especially those most exposed or vulnerable.

There is always a slice of the populace, in TB and everywhere, that is skeptical or jaded towards threats from natural forces and will consider it a badge of pride to resist calls to evacuate or even prepare.  And there may be more people not in direct peril that reconsider leaving the next time.

But there won't be a massive contingent of people refusing to evacuate the next time TB is in the cone a few days out from a significant TC.

[Hoosier]

11 minutes ago, WxSynopsisDavid said:

Yeah…..we aren’t seeing the worst of it. This is going to be like some of the high-end canes in the past. Whereas we don’t see the worst until like the Day 3 range when they start to get to those areas.

Which unfortunately makes a triple digit death toll plausible.  Let's hope it's not multiple hundreds.