Irene

Well, after having a look around the area I don’t believe there will many problems about weathermen and/or media “crying wolf“ over Irene, at least not here in CT. There are some three quarters of a million people without power, many of whom will not see it restored for weeks. There is quite a bit of damage, mostly trees and branches but some very serious flooding and beach erosion as well. In East Haven houses were completely swept away, and I’m sure that’s not the only place.

That said, I can’t say that this was as bad as Gloria, not here in the New Haven area. After Gloria I saw many places, New Haven’s Long Wharf drive area among them, where essentially every single tree had been blown over, you could see rows of them lying along the roadside. I saw nothing like that today from Irene. There was a big difference in the way the highest winds occurred with each storm... During Gloria, it was like somebody had switched on a huge fan, with continuous hurricane force winds that never let up until the eye passed, at which point it felt like the fan had simply been switched off again. With Irene there were some pretty high gusts on occasions, but nothing like the unrelenting onslaught of Gloria’s winds. Incidentally, the very strong gusts I experienced right on my own street appear to have indeed been something of a fluke. I saw nowhere else in New Haven where winds had torn metal from roofs, for instance.

Because of the timing with astronomical high tides, Irene’s worst shoreline flooding might be a match for Gloria‘s, although the flooding with Gloria may have been more extensive in area, and Gloria’s storm surge probably happened much quicker. During Gloria I remember walking up the road from the hotel to a bridge with a good vantage point looking out over the harbor, and when I turned around I saw the area where I had just been walking was now under several feet of water, it rose that fast. From the looks of things Irene’s surge came up slower, but backed by unusually high tides it may have delivered the same kind of punch in places.

I find it interesting that many if not most of the highest winds reported so far for Irene seem to have occurred well away from the center of the storm, both in distance and in time. Looking at the map of power outages, it’s the eastern half of the state that got hit the worst, despite Irene ultimately taking a path that virtually hugged the western edge of the state. And most of those high wind reports were for around 5:00 to 6:00 am, which would coincide with the last big convective feeder band that went through and not the passage of the central core. This pattern is very atypical for a tropical cyclone, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Irene ultimately declared extratropical, or at least in transition, upon landfall in CT.
 
Eye of Irene centred over Manhattan - does this explain relative calm there?

A couple of years ago, here in the UK, they ran a documentary about two British guys, storm chasers, who had gone out to the States with the specific aim of placing themselves in the still centre of a hurricane to experience the calm at the centre of the storm. To cut a long story short they managed to do so. Since then I have been intrigued by the calm centre of a hurricane, the opposite of course to the centre of a tornado.

There were not that many news channels with a UK feed on sunday when Irene was expected in Manhattan and I ended up following Irene on CNN which ran live coverage from NYC. (I was particularly interested as my son and his wife live in Manhattan on the upper west side. My son reported that it started raining late on Saturday).

So I turned on the television to see CNN's coverage at what around 6.00 local time in Manhattan. It may have been earlier. The first thing I saw was a very cold and wet Anderson Cooper in Greenwich Village. It was still dark. The weather was wild and windy. Cooper said he had had to deal with a leak in his flat before coming to work. By around 07.30am the weather where Cooper was, near Washington Square, had subsided considerably and was looking quite calm. The CNN reporters out on Long Beach were still reporting very wild weather.

Anderson pointed out to the CNN meteorologist back in the studio that there was no stormy weather around him and asked if the hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical storm. She said they would have to wait for the 8.00 advisory. When it came it was still officially a Cat 1 hurricane, although there was no wind or rain around Cooper. It was still lashing away on Long Beach and stormy on Lower Battery.

Cooper again queried the status of the storm pointing out it was calm where he was. The CNN meteorologist told him there were thunderstorms headed his way in 15 minutes. We waited but there was no sign of a thunderstorm arriving over Cooper. (He must lead a charmed life as whenever he is sent out to cover severe weather, it seems to clear up).

My son also emailed me from NYC to say the did not have any seriously bad weather up where they live on the Upper West Side either.

Irene moved west during its course. There were reports that the storm made landfall over Coney Island, and other reports that the eye was over Coney Island where it was said the weather was fiercest. it seems to me that many people were confusing landfall with the eye of the storm in assuming that the eye would be the fiercest weather.

It looked as though the eye arrived right over Manhattan. Given the size of the storm, 500 miles wide, wouldn't it be possible that the eye and therefore the calm area, was large enought to cover most if not all of Manhattan, including where Cooper was and explain why the weather was not so fierce in central Manhattan? By mid morning there was scarcely any wind or rain behind Cooper on the coverage.

I later saw a meteorologist on TWC, explain that the area behind the eye had deteriorated as it reached greater New York,. When this happens it can give rise to an irregular eye. This would explain why no strong winds followed the passing of the eye over Manhattan.

Still puzzled though over why the National Advisory still classified Irene as a Cat 1 hurricane at 08.00 as she moved over NYC. But it adds credibility to my theory, as the outer winds would have still be 75mph, just not in the eye itself.

Any comments?
 
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That UK documentry (A Very British Storm Junkie) featured myself and Roger Hill who is an American. As for your question, I was in Atlantic beach for hurricane Irene so I can't comment on conditions in New York.
 
I am going to eventually write more about this subject in my blog, but there is no way TWC and other media outlets can now justify the "inland flooding" and "power outages" as excuses for the way they promoted Irene for several days as the "most catastrophic storm in east coast history," etc. There were no "25 foot storm surges in Wilmington," "tall buildings on the verge of collapse in NY," "seaside communities wiped clean" or "historic" destruction and loss of life along the east coast as projected. The worse "hurricane damage" I have seen is along the NC coast were homes are foolishly built on sandbars. Again, such damage and flooding was not unexpected. It's easy to lose sight of that in the midst of unfortunate flooding and power outages that could be expected with any minor hurricane, ice storm, nor-easter or tropical storm.

The scenes on TV pale with those from Katrina, Andrew, Hugo, etc., although the pre-storm comments and frenzy generated by the media were of a similar scale. I do not buy the excuse that it's better to "over-forecast" or "over-rate" a hurricane just to keep people in fear. I can guarantee you next time a hurricane threatens the area, fewer people will take heed.

W.
 
Stuart Robinson said:
That UK documentry (A Very British Storm Junkie) featured myself and Roger Hill who is an American. As for your question, I was in Atlantic beach for hurricane Irene so I can't comment on conditions in New York.
Click to expand...

I beleive that was you I met out there Stuart. Forgive me if I am wrong, met lots of new people. I was also in Atlantic Beach / Morehead City. Interestingly enough,..seemed the SW part of the eye wall was a bit stronger than the NW side. Highest wind gust was 105 (before my anemometer broke), lowest pressure recorded was 954 mb. I made sure my barometer was calibrated before I left and it was never more than .2 mb off from nearby surface obs.

** Here's some video of my chase http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OflsIydqs5A

Not sure if post storm reports go in this thread but I guess moderators will relocate my post if it doesn't. Glad to hear (so far) that most everybody made it back safely.
 
hazelmaryjackson said:
A couple of years ago, here in the UK, they ran a documentary about two British guys, storm chasers, who had gone out to the States with the specific aim of placing themselves in the still centre of a hurricane to experience the calm at the centre of the storm. To cut a long story short they managed to do so. Since then I have been intrigued by the calm centre of a hurricane, the opposite of course to the centre of a tornado.

There were not that many news channels with a UK feed on sunday when Irene was expected in Manhattan and I ended up following Irene on CNN which ran live coverage from NYC. (I was particularly interested as my son and his wife live in Manhattan on the upper west side. My son reported that it started raining late on Saturday).

So I turned on the television to see CNN's coverage at what around 6.00 local time in Manhattan. It may have been earlier. The first thing I saw was a very cold and wet Anderson Cooper in Greenwich Village. It was still dark. The weather was wild and windy. Cooper said he had had to deal with a leak in his flat before coming to work. By around 07.30am the weather where Cooper was, near Washington Square, had subsided considerably and was looking quite calm. The CNN reporters out on Long Beach were still reporting very wild weather.

Anderson pointed out to the CNN meteorologist back in the studio that there was no stormy weather around him and asked if the hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical storm. She said they would have to wait for the 8.00 advisory. When it came it was still officially a Cat 1 hurricane, although there was no wind or rain around Cooper. It was still lashing away on Long Beach and stormy on Lower Battery.

Cooper again queried the status of the storm pointing out it was calm where he was. The CNN meteorologist told him there were thunderstorms headed his way in 15 minutes. We waited but there was no sign of a thunderstorm arriving over Cooper. (He must lead a charmed life as whenever he is sent out to cover severe weather, it seems to clear up).

My son also emailed me from NYC to say the did not have any seriously bad weather up where they live on the Upper West Side either.

Irene moved west during its course. There were reports that the storm made landfall over Coney Island, and other reports that the eye was over Coney Island where it was said the weather was fiercest. it seems to me that many people were confusing landfall with the eye of the storm in assuming that the eye would be the fiercest weather.

It looked as though the eye arrived right over Manhattan. Given the size of the storm, 500 miles wide, wouldn't it be possible that the eye and therefore the calm area, was large enought to cover most if not all of Manhattan, including where Cooper was and explain why the weather was not so fierce in central Manhattan? By mid morning there was scarcely any wind or rain behind Cooper on the coverage.

I later saw a meteorologist on TWC, explain that the area behind the eye had deteriorated as it reached greater New York,. When this happens it can give rise to an irregular eye. This would explain why no strong winds followed the passing of the eye over Manhattan.

Still puzzled though over why the National Advisory still classified Irene as a Cat 1 hurricane at 08.00 as she moved over NYC. But it adds credibility to my theory, as the outer winds would have still be 75mph, just not in the eye itself.

Any comments?
Click to expand...

I was hoping someone else would chime in (Edit: I see a few have, as I was composing this) but as one of the very few people in the affected area with power, I guess it falls to me to answer. Basically, this is all of a piece with what I was saying at the end of my last post. The worst effects from Irene were felt well away from the center. Note that I don’t say eye, because by the time Irene got to New England there was almost nothing you could point to and call an eye. There was only the barest remnant of the structure one normally sees: a calm eye surrounded by an eyewall. You are correct that the area inside the eye is usually quite calm, but to get there you must withstand passage of the eyewall, which usually, indeed almost always, contains the very highest winds. With Irene, the highest winds appear to have been far from the eye, and the lack of an eyewall makes it hard to even determine where the eye was. I am by no means a hurricane expert, but Irene was so clearly atypical in many ways… One explanation for this would be that the storm was undergoing extra-tropical transition and had lost many of the canonical features we associate with tropical cyclones by the time it passed over NYC.

Irene had a large and strong windfield almost from the start, but when it reached our area the strongest winds were not making it down to the surface, this was pointed out many times in successive NHC discussions. Only where there were convective cells - basically, thunderstorms - were the strongest winds being felt on the ground, because the downdraft from a thunderstorm is a very effective mechanism for bringing upper level energy down to the surface. But the strongest convective cells were all in the outer bands of the storm, not at the center. There was no real convection left at the center of Irene when it hit NYC, and so the center was relatively calm, but this was not really because of it being the eye, not in the usual sense.

Basically, Irene had lost many of the features we associate with hurricanes, and so talk about an “eyeâ€￾ becomes difficult. There was a center where the pressure was lowest, but that center wasn’t inside an eyewall and so there wasn’t really a well-formed eye. That’s about the best I can do, hopefully someone with a better knowledge of hurricanes can give a better explanation.
 
Warren Faidley said:
I am going to eventually write more about this subject in my blog, but there is no way TWC and other media outlets can now justify the "inland flooding" and "power outages" as excuses for the way they promoted Irene for several days as the "most catastrophic storm in east coast history," etc. There were no "25 foot storm surges in Wilmington," "tall buildings on the verge of collapse in NY," "seaside communities wiped clean" or "historic" destruction and loss of life along the east coast as projected. The worse "hurricane damage" I have seen is along the NC coast were homes are foolishly built on sandbars. Again, such damage and flooding was not unexpected. It's easy to lose sight of that in the midst of unfortunate flooding and power outages that could be expected with any minor hurricane, ice storm, nor-easter or tropical storm.

The scenes on TV pale with those from Katrina, Andrew, Hugo, etc., although the pre-storm comments and frenzy generated by the media were of a similar scale. I do not buy the excuse that it's better to "over-forecast" or "over-rate" a hurricane just to keep people in fear. I can guarantee you next time a hurricane threatens the area, fewer people will take heed.

W.
Click to expand...

+1 to this...I could not agree more.
 
What was strange if you watched the CNN coverage was that Anderson Cooper started out, predawn, standing in Greenwich Village in what looked like the start of a severe storm (wind rain etc). But pretty soon it was all tailing off. (Not at Long Beach, just where he was). When he asked the CNN meteorologist what was happening, was it stilla hurricane she said he had to wait for the 08.00 advisory. That said it was still a Cat 1 hurricane. Then quite close to NYC. A short while later when a clearly puzzled Cooper asked if it was over, as the weather was quite calm all around him she said a thunderstorm was approaching and would be there in 15 minutes. But it never came at least not over Anderson Cooper. How come charts she was reading did not match what was happening on the ground. (There were no reports of high winds around the tallest skyscrapers either).
 
Just to follow up - found this forecast from Our Amazing Planet on Bing just now

By Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet

updated 8/27/2011 3:12:26 PM ET

Irene is predicted to be the latest in 2011's string of billion-dollar weather disasters. But for New York City, Irene is not shaping up to be the worst-case scenario it could be.

Forecasts show Irene hitting central Long Island, N.Y., sometime Sunday (Aug. 28), leaving New York City with the "clean side" of the hurricane and without the major storm surge. The city will mostly see "blustery rains and strong winds," said Eugene McCaul, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Click to expand...

-> READ MORE: Why Hurricane Irene is Not a Worst-Case Scenario for NYC
 
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I think most people / meteorologists felt that way. It was new commentators and TWC which offered up a more dire prediction.
 
In reply to rdale, aren't we allowed to discuss why after the event when even meteorologists seemed to get it wrong on the day? I was wondering why the CNN meteorologist and the 8.00 am advisory were still reporting a Cat 1 hurricane for NYC when it was clear there was nothing much happening in central Manhattan by then. And and why indeed, the CNN meteorologist said thunderstorms were approaching central Manhattan shortly after that when none came. I assume she was going by the radar maps?

Incidentally my son, who lives in the Upper West Side in Manhattan tells me that after the calm of mid morning, it got progressively windier in gusts all day but no rain.
 
Just caught the end of a PBS report on Irene noting that some public officials are now being called on "over-reacting" to Irene. I don't really blame the officials as they were getting their information from other sources.

On a comic note, this clip is a classic, TWC el-bust-o moment when they were doing their best to over-dramatize a rather benign moment. Classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F75xXwZ35MM

W.
 
hazelmaryjackson said:
In reply to rdale, aren't we allowed to discuss why after the event when even meteorologists seemed to get it wrong on the day? I was wondering why the CNN meteorologist and the 8.00 am advisory were still reporting a Cat 1 hurricane for NYC when it was clear there was nothing much happening in central Manhattan by then. \
Click to expand...

That's because the media don't always clarify what is meant when the NHC says something like "maximum winds to 85 mph". Indeed, the rating that a hurricane has on the Saffir Simpson scale (that is, category 1 through category 5) are based upon the maximum sustained wind speed associated with the hurricane. Usually, the maximum wind occurs in the eyewall region on the right side of the storm (if you are facing the direction of movement). So, there are two key qualifiers involved:

The rating is valid for the maximum sustained winds found anywhere in the circulation. There are times when the NHC will "filter" out what it thinks are winds caused by one individual thunderstorm or complex of thunderstorms that aren't representing of the larger circulation (you may have read about this when the NHC says something like "Recon found higher winds but those are probably just isolated convective wind gusts associated with this intermittent group of storms"). There are certainly times when the maximum winds found by recon and given in the official NHC products are very localized. In the case of Irene, the wind field was oftentimes very asymmetric -- the east side of the storm almost consistently had much stronger winds than the west side. For example, look at the following, which is a preliminary analysis of the wind speeds:

Notice that there are *no* hurricane-strength winds (again, we're talking sustained winds, not gusts) on the west side of the storm. For those along the coast, this is good, since nearly all land areas were in the western half of the storm. The exception to this was when Irene originally made landfall in NC:

AL092011_0827_1330_contour04.png


Now, let's compare this to the analysis closest to the time that Irene crossed the shores of New Jersey... The cross-hairs represent the center of Irene:

AL092011_0828_1030_contour04.png


As you can see, just after landfall in NJ, there were actually no analyzed hurricane-force winds even over the open water. Of course, there may have been some very localized pockets of hurricane-force winds, but the point remains that those on land experienced much weaker winds than the "maximum" winds that are used to classify tropical cyclones. It makes for not-as-exciting TV to tell people that they probably will only see weak-to-moderate (at most) tropical storm winds unless they are immediately along the coast.

Unfortunately, this often gets lost when the media present the storm. I'm not sure I ever heard the reports in the field mention that there were no hurricane-strength winds in the western 1/2 of the storm. Instead, they continued to say "Hurricane Irene is raking the coast". True, it was a hurricane at the time, but I think many people expected to experience hurricane-strength winds, when it was clear that very few people were going to see such strong winds. Heck, most of the time, the vast majority of areas >20 miles from the coast were only reporting tropical depression-strength winds.

EDIT: The above wind analysis graphics are from the HRD. More wind analyses (valid 3-6 hrs, IIRC) are available from the HRD Irene site.
 
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My photos after the storm from around Darien: Photos

Best video I have found in Darien from the storm so far (not my video, wish I was there). This is Long Island Sound and is usually a tranquil harbor called Noroton Bay. Long Island is about seven miles away across the Sound. Video

After a tour of town I will go with the assessment that this was the worst storm surge my town has ever had (at least in recent history) and winds were generally the same as Gloria. In Gloria we were on the weak side of a weak hurricane and in Irene we were on the strong side of a strong tropical storm.

We first lost power at 1:30 am with the strongest winds coming between 3 & 5am in feeder bands and heavy precip. Once the dry, south side of the storm reached us we lost almost all the wind until later in the afternoon. The winds coming between 3 & 7pm were almost as strong as those during the storm and probably accounted for 30% of the power outages in my town.

I am very happy with the official NWS and NHC forecasts for my area. I took some simple steps to protect my property and make my life a little easier in the event the storm was stronger. With a two year old and a 3 month old in the house you think and plan a little differently.
 
Warren Faidley said:
I am going to eventually write more about this subject in my blog, but there is no way TWC and other media outlets can now justify the "inland flooding" and "power outages" as excuses for the way they promoted Irene for several days as the "most catastrophic storm in east coast history," etc. There were no "25 foot storm surges in Wilmington," "tall buildings on the verge of collapse in NY," "seaside communities wiped clean" or "historic" destruction and loss of life along the east coast as projected. The worse "hurricane damage" I have seen is along the NC coast were homes are foolishly built on sandbars. Again, such damage and flooding was not unexpected. It's easy to lose sight of that in the midst of unfortunate flooding and power outages that could be expected with any minor hurricane, ice storm, nor-easter or tropical storm.

The scenes on TV pale with those from Katrina, Andrew, Hugo, etc., although the pre-storm comments and frenzy generated by the media were of a similar scale. I do not buy the excuse that it's better to "over-forecast" or "over-rate" a hurricane just to keep people in fear. I can guarantee you next time a hurricane threatens the area, fewer people will take heed.

W.
Click to expand...

I agree with this 100%. Spot-on on everything.

This is the case where the hype was more intimidating than the storm itself and it very well could affect how people take precautions in the future, maybe even as soon as TD 12 with its potential affects on any American coastline.
 
Thanks for those graphics and insights, Jeff. I think Jeff's comments are spot on about where the media went wrong, i.e. not sufficiently emphasizing that the highest winds were on the ocean side of the storm so for the most part, they did not impact land areas until the storm had weakened considerably by its final landfall near NYC, and even then only well east of the center. That said, I do think that all the discussions about how over-hyped the storm was are themselves a little overhyped. After all, 40 or more people are dead, seven and a half million lost power (and many will be without power for days on end), and the damage looks to be in the $10-12 billion range. In a few places, i.e. CT and some parts of NJ and NC, the storm surge flooding was quite serious. Another foot or two in other areas, it could have been a lot worse than it was in those areas, too. I don't think anyone ever said this was going to be an Andrew or a Katrina, but its impacts were far from minor. As to where the media messed up, in addition to the point Jeff made, I would say that they devoted too much attention to coastal areas (especially in regard to the wind hazard) and not enough to inland flooding risk. Of course there is more population in coastal areas, so that is not entirely surprising. And as I said, the surge risk had to be taken seriously, as another foot or two could have made things much worse in several areas. I did see cases where the media mentioned a likelihood of much larger surges than what the Hurricane Center was predicting without giving any reason for saying that, and that is problematic. So there were definitely places where the media could have done better, but the issues are in fact quite a bit more complex than "they overhyped it." This storm did, as predicted, have much larger impacts than would be typical with a category 1 storm.
 
I can't remember a case where mid-level troughing in the lee of an energetic tropical system off the Mid-Atlantic coast has been over-estimated. I can recall many cases, including Irene, IMO, where the actual baroclinicity appears to exceed expectations. In Irene's case it looked to these non-expert eyeballs that the circulation got sheared apart starting off the VA/MD coast. Just perhaps, the observed relatively large difference between flight-level and surface windspeeds increased the shearing in that the near-surface circulation couldn't keep up with the convection to a greater degree than usual.

I have the sense (easily refuted by hard data and research) that although the models do a better job of accounting for energy advection off the Mid-Atlantic coast with extra-tropical cyclones, i.e. "bombing", than they used to, they still don't seem to fully handle it for vigorous tropical cyclones. To my eyes, and I think commented on by TWC experts, there was a prominent moisture conveyor on satellite from the tropics wrapping back around ahead of Irene as it neared the NC coast and thereafter.

As a one-time VT resident, I'd opine that Irene wasn't over-hyped as a public safety issue. If there's anything to criticize, it's that the flood potential was under-emphasized. FWIW.
 
John Farley said:
Thanks for those graphics and insights, Jeff. I think Jeff's comments are spot on about where the media went wrong, i.e. not sufficiently emphasizing that the highest winds were on the ocean side of the storm so for the most part, they did not impact land areas until the storm had weakened considerably by its final landfall near NYC, and even then only well east of the center. That said, I do think that all the discussions about how over-hyped the storm was are themselves a little overhyped. After all, 40 or more people are dead, seven and a half million lost power (and many will be without power for days on end), and the damage looks to be in the $10-12 billion range. In a few places, i.e. CT and some parts of NJ and NC, the storm surge flooding was quite serious. Another foot or two in other areas, it could have been a lot worse than it was in those areas, too. I don't think anyone ever said this was going to be an Andrew or a Katrina, but its impacts were far from minor. As to where the media messed up, in addition to the point Jeff made, I would say that they devoted too much attention to coastal areas (especially in regard to the wind hazard) and not enough to inland flooding risk. Of course there is more population in coastal areas, so that is not entirely surprising. And as I said, the surge risk had to be taken seriously, as another foot or two could have made things much worse in several areas. I did see cases where the media mentioned a likelihood of much larger surges than what the Hurricane Center was predicting without giving any reason for saying that, and that is problematic. So there were definitely places where the media could have done better, but the issues are in fact quite a bit more complex than "they overhyped it." This storm did, as predicted, have much larger impacts than would be typical with a category 1 storm.
Click to expand...


yeah it seems like people were already saying the forecast was going to be wrong before it was "wrong". i admit i didn't watch as much of the media coverage as some others seemingly have, but i just think it's another situation of damn if you do, damn if you don't for the weather community. you have a hurricane which was forecast to be way stronger at one point than what it ended up being, heading to basically the most densely populated area of the united states. unfortunately, the weather service and the media didn't have the luxury of waiting until the last minute to see if the storm was going to be as bad as it was forecast. they had to issue their dire warnings days in advance due to the amount of time needed to evacuate areas. i would always rather see something like this erred on the side of caution.
also, no matter how accurate the forecast is, you are always going to have people that don't listen to the weather forecasts, and I don't really feel sorry for them if they don't. I have serious doubts about how detrimental this storms "weakness" will have on future storms' warnings and the amount of people that actually do listen and evacuate if need be.
sure the media probably made things seem worse too than what they were going to be, but that's what the media does, over-sensationalize things:)
 
Good day all,

Finally edited some notable storm footage I shot on my hurricane Irene chase...



Link is to YouTube and shows both some high surf / injuries footage (from rogue wave) in Palm Beach, FL on 8-25 and the latter main intercept of Irene in North Carolina on the 27th.
 
Mike, my comment wasn't directed at private or public weather services who were quite dilligent in issuing flash flood advisories, but rather at the media. The media were busy filming tree branches downed in Central Park while bridges were washing away and towns were being flooded.
 
The clips are pouring in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kohxJwcUAFA&feature=related

I should note that this in no way distracts or lessons the reality of damage and loss of life from "Tropical Storm" flooding. However, it does point out that instead of focusing on the less glamorous aspects of inland river flooding, media organizations flocked to the coastlines to try and create a more visual "tropical" disaster that never happened. I don't see them providing "live" 24 hour coverage as homes and lives are destroyed from flooding. I hope this illustrates my point.

W.
 
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