Posted on 08/28/2011 6:50:28 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
Yesterday was an interesting day. I presented a very straightforward map from Weather Underground showing that there were no sustained surface winds higher than 33 MPH at Irene’s US landfall.
Hundreds of people went nuts, because the map disagreed with their need to blindly trust authority. They accused me of lying (did I make the map?) They accused Weather Underground of bogus maps (Jeff Masters the denier.) They came up with every reason to not believe the Emperor was NOAAked.
Incidents like this help me to understand the roots of historical disastrous human behaviour. Many people will blindly trust authority – rather than thinking for themselves or believing what they see with their own eyes.
(Excerpt) Read more at real-science.com ...
The supposed wind speeds were not ground wind speeds, but actually at a few thousand feet.
Not what you’d expect of a guardian of knowledge for the “we the people”?
Almost in the track.
I don’t quite understand all of this anger/disgust/paranoia over the reporting of this storm.
I live on the Gulf Coast & have experienced hurricanes for 50+ years. I have had 75+ mph winds in my face many times.
I realize the weather people & politicians get all wet & creamy when a storm comes, but I’m damn glad for the warnings. I realize they are “predicting” on the extreme side of caution. But I’d much rather be prepared for a massive storm, only to see it fizzle out or turn away, than be ill prepared for a 3 week nightmare such as Frederick in 1979.
Three weeks with no power, & water unfit to drink. Roads impassable. Stores & banks closed. Dusk to dawn Curfew. Nothing but a radio endlessly replaying “Don’t worry, be happy”. Six inches of river mud in my house, roof mostly gone, & roofing nails/shingles/boards everywhere. At night, it looked like North Korea - dark. Streets crosshatched with trees & power poles. We had to cut our way out with chainsaws. Fifty + miles to the nearest open store or gas station, with long lines at both - if you could get there. This went on for weeks.
Frederick was reportedly 125 mph winds. At one point it was “reported” Irene was at 120 mph. There is absolutely no meteorologist on Earth that can predict with any certainty the wind speed & direction of a storm beyond a few hours. Storms can rapidly intensify & weaken.
I believe it would have been irresponsible to minimize the danger of Irene to the (mostly ignorant) public. A few miles or a few MPH could have made this storm a major killer. NY just got lucky.
When a Gulf storm misses us or fizzles out, we consider ourselves fortunate. Yeah, we grumble a little about the weatherman monopolizing the TV & all the junk food we bought, but I wouldn’t want to return to the old days of a radio, map, & pencil, with too little info rather than too much.
I’m just thankful that somebody who knows more than I is giving us their estimation of coming danger. If they err on the side of caution, I completely understand that & approve. Some folks, you know, need more convincing than others.
With hurricanes, plan for the worst & accept anything less gladly. When the bad one comes you MIGHT survive.
Yeah, let's talk about Fred...How it was NOT hyped, how we received ACCURATE reports, and not some a** with a microphone who wanted his 10 minutes of fame leaning into nonexistent wind.
We had WEATHER men, and women then. NOT actors.
Yeah, let's talk about Fred...How it was NOT hyped, how we received ACCURATE reports, and not some a** with a microphone who wanted his 10 minutes of fame leaning into nonexistent wind.
We had WEATHER men, and women then. NOT actors.
That’s because nobody likes Bloomberg.
Odumbo sure milked it like a prize cow. (He was sooo much in charge)
Irene was a hurricane, simple enough.
The problem I have right now, is that dismissing it in the media and on the internet will lead to future problems and loss of life.
The next hurricane that comes along, where people are asked to evacuate...will be met with skepticism. There WILL be people who stay behind because there were told that Irene was not a hurricane after the fact. This is a dangerous scenario.
So instead of everyone either downplaying Irene or sticking to the official story...we instead need to raise awareness for the next one, keep everyone toeing the line.
Do people in Oklahoma ignore a tornado because it’s just an F1?
(Survived Hugo and numerous others, so I know what I’m talking about)
No, you’re quite wrong about that. The sustained wind speeds reported by NOAA in their bulletins are for winds at the surface, not thousands of feet up. The buoys, ships, and ground stations measure what is happening at the surface.
“IMO, its because even a “sustained” wind only has to last 60 seconds to,count IIRC.”
That’s an important bit of knowledge to add to this discussion for sure. I wonder how long these observation units that are on the ground clock the speed? That would be an important bit of info as well.
What this whole discussion really shows is that many people have lost trust in our government,science and the media in this country for good reason. THEY LIE! It’s perfectly natural to begin to question everything that they do when they have lost so much credibility. It isn’t ‘conspiracy theory’ at this point....it is ‘vetting’ things that need to be vetted.
How long can our institutions of authority expect to be trusted when they have been caught in lie after lie after lie?
The only conspiracy here is the Media conspiring to get higher ratings. Sure they’ll bend the truth for money, they’re liberals after all. When a truly dangerous storm comes along, and people don’t listen to them and thousands die, well, that’s just big ratings for a few more days. They call that a win-win.
The Left has made the weather, and in particular, hurricanes into an explosive political issue. Liberals exaggerate and outright lie about the weather to move the public to their point of view and power in fear.
This manipulative display of hype was to:
Provide a favorable comparison of Dear Reader in Irene at the FEMA command center to Bush in Katrina even though the two storms were not similar.
To show that hurricanes are caused by man made global warming, which was repeated over and over again in order to connect the fear of the hurricane hype to Algore’s watermelon and carbon investment agenda.
To qualify for disaster funds from FEMA. Had the storm been classified as a tropical storm (which it was), Obammy could not spread around Fema’s disaster funds (walking around money for infrastructure re-building) to PA, NY and NJ political supporters. His FEMA improperly ordered expensive evacuations of residents and even nursing homes and has to keep up the ruse of a disaster level, dangerous hurricane in order to justify their orders and pay the cities for the costs they incurred by following FEMA’s disaster orders. Evacuations are hugely expensive to individuals and to the cities and states. Real hurricanes can cause damage to bridges, government buildings, beaches, roads, sewer and water systems. So, since this was improperly classified as a hurricane disaster, Bloomberg can blame any infrastructure spending he desires on damage caused by the hurricane’s wind and flooding.
Politizing the weather is dangerous. If the public does not believe the hurricane data and reports out of NOAA on Teee Veee, they will end up in another Katrina where idiots don’t evacuate. Personally, we evacuate when our own research points to evacuation. All the data is available on the internet or, in our case, through our work.
People don’t evacuate for tropical storms even though these storms can cause minor wind damage and flooding and they can also spin off tornados. Although people can die from a tropical storm (a tree falling on them or a tornado hitting their house), they are not deadly enough to evacuate the areas. This damage is handled between property owners, cities, States and insurance companies. FEMA evacuation and “disaster” is for the deadly winds and water surges of a powerful hurricane in order to protect human life. But no more.
Hurricanes die pretty quickly when they hit land. Irene lost strength in open water before she started hitting land and continued to lose strength as she ground up the coast. That she moved up the coast for so many miles as opposed to moving directly onto land seems to me to have made a big difference.
I agree, however, maybe not conspiracy, but, how about an ingrained bias towards global warming and potential funding increases or decreases.
It has affected many science disciplines in quite a frustrating way.
What would be interesting and noteworthy is if there is a highly conservative president and both houses of legislation.....will there be better wx reporting on down the road.
And yet the NHC still claimed sustained winds of 85 mph when it made landfall in NY.
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You're giving them way too much credit. That implies an informed conscious plan.
These "leaders" act out of ignorance and, when wrong, they can always claim to have averted a bigger problem by their actions*.
The reality is, when it comes to things technical or scientific, they haven't a clue, and any self serving group can point them in any direction.
They are functional morons.
* Sound familiar?
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