Gray's Hurricane Forecast

[HAltschule]

OK. So here are my gripes. There's nothing else to talk about so here's what's on my mind while reading this MSNBC article this AM. The Colorado Hurricane Experts released ANOTHER updated hurricane forecast today. A High School student could give a Hurricane Forecast like this. It's like forecasting 4-6" of snow when there is 4" on the ground already, 1 hour before the storm ends.

I'll continue paying NO attention to their hurricane forecasts as they are usually guesstimates. No one can tell the number of hurricanes, intense hurricanes or landfalling U.S. Hurricanes that will form so many months in advance? To say that the season will be active or above average is one thing, but to put such specific numbers on a Hurricane Season forecast is deceiving and make Meteorologists in general look bad when they bust. For Example, the word is, many Floridians are questioning what happened to the enormous number of hurricanes that were forecast with the Spring 2006 press release. They are happy but no longer trust long range Hurricane Forecasts. If they want to be guy to turn to for news interviews and stories then figure out how to stop the Hurricanes from striking land or from intesnifying so much. But stop issuing these ridiculous guesses about how many CAT 3 hurricanes there will be or how many will only be CAT 1.

One final thing. It is no different than this guy Joe Bastardi saying an intense Hurricane is going to hit NYC or LI. He said it, we laughed at him for saying it, and it didn't happen. Another example of Met's embarrassing the other Met's by giving such ridiculous forecasts so far in advance. I wonder if we'll see Mr. Bastardi's Press Release explaining what happened?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14117848/

Go ahead, chime in, support my opinion or blast me for being so rough on them. Let the fun begin.

 

[rdale]

"It is no different than this guy Joe Bastardi saying an intense Hurricane is going to hit NYC or LI."

It's MUCH MUCH different... Gray is not spitting out who will get hit when, he's saying "this is what the big picture looks like." His accuracy over time bears out that there's some value in it. The state of the science won't improve if we don't try, and if they make the forecast, have success in the past, it only makes sense to continue trying.

Remember NWS does this as well.

 

[B Ozanne]

Does anyone have actual stats on Gray's forecasts?

 

[Dan Robinson]

I think 2006 was the east coast season that 'could have been'. We saw a respectable number of Atlantic storms that, had the overall patterns been further west, would have resulted in a good number of east coast landfalls.

 

[B Ozanne]

I think 2006 was the east coast season that 'could have been'. We saw a respectable number of Atlantic storms that, had the overall patterns been further west, would have resulted in a good number of east coast landfalls.

It really was. I experienced 2 of the 3 landfalling storms. Beryl tracked 10 miles to my east when I was on Martha's Vineyard. Ernesto missed me by a lot, but my town saw some of the worst damage from the storm.

 

[HAltschule]

Yes, these stat's may be accurate through 2005, but they will certainly go down once they add 2006's figures. These studies are through 2005 only.

 

[rdale]

Agreed. But one bad season doesn't mean you quit...

 

[HAltschule]

Indeed, you don't quit but I really don't understand how they can qualify intense versus non-intense hurricanes months before the storm even forms. This seems like guesswork. Granted, one can forecast average or above average activity, but the specifics they provide don't make much sense to me from a prognostic point of view. If there are models that show the storm being CAT 3 or higher, then yes, it can be mentioned. But I do not know of any models they use that can get this descriptive that far out. As Meteorologists, it still makes the rest of us suffer reputationwise as being wrong. As you know from TV, if one Met. gives a forecast that's wrong, the public blames every other Met. in town even if you were 100% accurate.

I suppose my issue is with the specifics of how many H's there will be, how many intense H's, etc... That seems to be guesswork or climatology.

 

[rdale]

I don't know much about tropical - but it appears something in last year's setup helped most of the storms to go ballistic. My guess is they look for those signs and use that to judge after they forecast how many will occur.

As for it hurting the met reputation - I don't know of any Joe Public who did anything other than say "neat." I doubt Joe will check the verification stats after the season ends, or will be blame us, or stop trusting our 6-Day.

He shouldn't trust that to begin with ;>