Vindauga

Mostly, I just wanted a post with that title. Jerry is dissolving and won’t really bother anyone.

Okay, fine, Jerry in this case is a guy’s name, be that way. Let’s move on to Tropical Depression 12, which will probably become a tropical storm in the next 24 hours and will then acquire the name Karen. Karen, if so she be called, also won’t really bother anyone. She looks to turn North before she approaches Windward Islands. Be calm.

Great. So let’s talk about the person the other day that said “I find it ironic that the weather service keeps downgrading their forecast for the number of storms this season.” I queried in response “what’s ironic about it?” There was no good reply, merely a half-hearted attempt to show that it was funny that the weather service sucks at making bald-faced predictions about the number of major hurricanes that will make landfall in a season. I’m not real supportive of these kinds of jabs. I’ve heard the joke about how meteorologists  are the only professionals who can be wrong 50% of the time and still keep their jobs. But that really just misunderstands what the hell a meteorological forecast really is. And it overlooks the fact that these guys have to hedge their bets in a way that only the presidents of Fortune 500 companies understand; when they give a hurricane warning, millions of dollars immediately get spent.

I realize that this kind of misses the point of the jab so let’s talk about meteorological predictions and the point of them for a second. I doubt they have any real bearing on anything. Certainly no state government that I know of is sitting around trying to figure out their budget based on how many major hurricanes are going to hit the US. Actuarials don’t change their formulas based on these things; they look at the history of storms and bet on statistical probabilities. No, the predictions are for the mass audience. Even then they are radically misunderstood. The predictions are always couched in terms of how many storms will make landfall, there is never ever a prediction of how many will make landfall at specific points; that would be just plain silly.

Let’s talk about the value of these kinds of predictions anyway. A couple of years ago, there was an absurd number of storms that made landfall. It was a bad year. But the year after was much worse and it had less named storms. And, lest we forget Hurricane Andrew, which still reigns, even after Katrina, as one of the most devastating storms to hit the US, didn’t make landfall until September 24. 15 years ago yesterday the first storm of the season crushed Miami. We are currently up to the letter J. It doesn’t really matter how many storms hit, doesn’t matter if it is 5 or 50, it only takes 1 to wreck a place. And, since they don’t get stronger in mathematical progression as the season advances (its not like the United States has to face a series of more difficult bosses to reach the end of the season) but can vary wildly in strength over the course of the season, I find it dubious at best to take number of storms as an indication of anything.

So, to the young woman who said that it was ironic that the weather folks keep reducing their predictions (she doesn’t read this site): you apparently learned to use the word ironic from Alanis Morisette, quit bagging on the folks at the NHC.