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Subscribe to RSSHurricane Irene wasn't as bad as predicted, and now some are asking whether the storm was over-hyped. NBC's Peter Alexander takes a closer look and The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore and Bryan Norcross share their insight.
Did forecasters, policymakers and media types overhype Hurricane Irene? It's not just a meteorological question: The debate over whether the outlook for damage was overhyped, or hyped just right, touches upon issues of risk perception and even the climate change debate. Like most natural disasters, Irene's deadly sweep over the U.S. East Coast has left behind some important lessons for researchers as well as regular folks.
Here are some of the lessons that Monday-morning commentators are chewing over:
What was right and wrong about storm prediction?
The computer models, and the meteorologists who wielded them, put in a "gold medal" performance when it came to predicting Irene's track — but there was much more uncertainty about the intensity of the storm. That's typical for tropical storms, said Frank Marks, director of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory's Hurricane Research Division. "Irene really exemplified the issues that we've been trying to tackle," he told me.
Hurricanes typically follow a pattern in which an outer ring of storms will tighten up to replace an inner ring surrounding the hurricane's eye, intensifying the storm system in the process. In Irene's case, that pattern (known as eyewall replacement) was interrupted, and the storm didn't gather as much strength as most of the models suggested. "Some of the models did represent it well," Marks said, but there wasn't enough confidence in those models to change the storm forecast.
Researchers have been working to reduce the error rate for hurricane track and intensity forecasts through the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, with the goal of a 50 percent reduction from 2008 levels by 2018. The University of Washington's Cliff Mass, an expert on weather modeling, said Irene showed that much more progress still has to be made on predicting a storm's intensity.
"The classic is good forecast for track, bad forecast for intensity," he told me. "Let's face it: This happens all the time. ... To get the intensity right, you have to be able to predict the inner workings of the storm, and that's what we don't do well yet."
But Mass said "we didn't even need the models" to know that Irene would become less intense as it moved up the coast, through the increasingly cool waters of the Atlantic. In fact, Mass contends in a blog post today that "there is really no reliable evidence of hurricane-force winds at any time the storm was approaching North Carolina or moving up the East Coast."
He argued that the National Weather Service should have downgraded the storm much more quickly than it did. "There's a tendency to be conservative," he told me. "We have to learn to be more nimble."
This GOES-13 satellite movie shows Hurricane Irene lashing the Mid-Atlantic region between Aug. 26 and Aug. 28. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters
Did forecasters overhype the storm?
In his blog posting, Mass addresses the hype surrounding Irene: "Considering the tendency for media to hype storms, it is crucial for meteorologists to stick to the exact story and not overwarn in the hope of encouraging people ot take effective action. If the storm was known not to be a hurricane earlier, might the mayor of NY have held off closing the city down, thus saving billions of dollars?"
Marks said that the storm was assessed based on readings taken from above as well as on the surface, and that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration followed the standard procedures for those assessments. But he acknowledged that Irene was a tough storm to classify, in part because of its breadth. "From Cape Cod all the way inland to Pennsylvania — just think about the energy," he said. "It's really the energy of the storm, it's not the peak wind."
He said spin control isn't part of NOAA's mission. "We provide as much information as we can, based on what we know," Marks said. "What the public and decision makers do with that information is something that's out of our purview."
Marks acknowledged that some of the reports made the storm sound scarier than it really was. "If you looked at those scenarios that the media was getting ... the disaster scenario was extreme. That was for a major hurricane coming straight at them, not a weakening storm coming up the coast," he said.
How much was lost in translation?
So was this a case of journalists and policymakers making too much of the storm? Maybe so, said David Ropeik, a consultant on risk perception, Big Think blogger and author of the book "How Risky Is It, Really?" But maybe that's not so bad.
"Yes, the information the media presented was wrapped up in breathless alarmism," Ropeik, a former msnbc.com contributor, told me. "But we forget two things: First, surveys show that the public knows that about the media. And second, under all the alarmism was really important information that helped people stay safe: storm track timing, tips for preparedness, evacuation routes. It was alarmist in voice, but an informative tool. And that probably helped more than it hurt. ... There was no panic, there was no hysteria."
Ropeik said government officials also did the right thing: "In my opinion, they were overly precautionary, but most people want them to do that. One can only measure the accuracy of their precaution in hindsight, and you don't want to err on the wrong side. ... The evacuation, the closing of the subways, you don't want to make a mistake on that in the wrong direction."
There were political considerations, to be sure. Just ask New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who faced harsh criticism over the lack of preparedness for last winter's snowstorms — or former President George W. Bush, who was similarly criticized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina almost exactly six years ago.
But beyond the politics, the storm's toll — more than 30 dead, plus an estimated $7 billion in property damage — clearly demonstrates that Irene was more than just hype.
"I daresay the people who are saying there was overreaction are not those who are still without power, or who suffered property losses, or who lost loved ones," Ropeik said. "Risk is a matter of perception. It depends on who you ask."
Some commentators worry that hyping hurricanes will lead folks to disregard future warnings as a case of "crying wolf," but Ropeik said the public response to the warnings about Irene "puts the lie to that."
"Other storms have been hyped, and have not panned out, and yet people still took reasonable precautions this time," he said. "The 'cry-wolf' thing didn't happen."
Do more big storms lie ahead?
The concerns about Irene's effects could hint at the shape of climate debates to come.
Research published last year in the journal Nature Geoscience suggested that global warming was likely to produce fewer but stronger tropical storms. This year, a study in the journal Science came to a similar conclusion.
Such projections have sparked strong debate, as most claims about climate effects have done. It's impossible to link any single event, such as Irene or Katrina, to long-term climate trends. But in a posting to his Desmog Blog, science writer Chris Mooney argues that Hurricane Irene should get people thinking about what lies ahead:
"... Irene focuses our attention on our serious vulnerability, and we need to seize that moment — because too often our default position is to act like nothing bad is going to happen.
"There are several places in the United States, besides New Orleans, where a strong hurricane landfall could be absolutely devastating. These include the Florida Keys, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg and Houston/Galveston. But they also include some East Coast locations, and chief among these is New York/Long Island. ...
"So what are our major coastal cities doing to protect themselves? That's the question we should all be asking right now."
What questions are you asking? Share them as a comment below, and we'll see if we can get a discussion going.
Update for 5:30 p.m. ET: One of the first Irene-related research projects to come to light focuses on whether big storms could actually counteract the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Scientists at the Stroud Water Research Center and the University of Delaware are sampling the storm runoff at sites along creeks in Delaware to measure how much carbon is being transported. In a news release, the National Science Foundation says the project could reveal how much of a role soil erosion plays in sequestering carbon to prevent it from re-entering the global carbon cycle.
"The bigger the storm, the greater the disproportionate load, so you might have a single 100-year storm event move 25 percent of the material for an entire decade," said Anthony Aufdemkampe, a scientist at the Stroud Water Research Center. "This is important, because fresh waters and the carbon they transport play a major role in the global cycling of greenhouse gases."
Update for 6:30 p.m. ET: Climate Progress' Joe Romm notes that rising sea levels, which some see as an effect of global climate change, would heighten the destructive effect of coastal storms such as Irene because the storm surge would come on top of those higher seas. (The state of global sea levels is another subject of scientific discussion.)
More about Irene's aftermath:
- Twitter's top lessons from Hurricane Irene
- Readers capture Hurricane Irene
- Hurricane Irene spawns baby boom
- Stocks close sharply higher after Irene passes
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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They have done a very good job.
The while the storm was weakening on Wednesday thru Friday night they kept predicting it was going to intensify. It was only Friday night that they finally started to forecast weakening, and even then they did so at a much slower rate that what actually happened. The storm was definitely over-hyped. The reasons for this vary with the people doing the hyping. The weather types always seem to go with the worst case just to cover themselves. The politicians go for worst case so that they can claim some measure of credit for avoiding disaster by pushing for greatly exaggerated storm preparations that were largely unnecessary. They wanted to show the voters how proactive they are in the face of a potential catastrophe, even if the potential was never really there. Obama making statements that Irene was going to be a "historic storm" only added to the hype. He did this so he could look like a strong president guiding the country through this major event, when in reality, Irene was relatively minor as hurricanes go. And then you have the media who just hype up everything to try and up there audience. There was no reason with this storm to have completely shut down the entire mass transit system in NYC. Bloomberg went so far to the side of caution that he created a lot of unneeded headaches for the people in the city. In addition, shutting down the system so far in advance of the storm left many people with no way at all to get around for far longer than was needed even if the storm had been worse. This created it's own problems for people, for some even more problems than the storm. The FAA and the airlines went crazy with closing airports and cancelling flights well before it was necessary, creating a lot of unnecessary problems for the traveling public. Being prepared for a storm is one thing, but the entire system overreacted this time. Everyone in a position to make a decision was so afraid of looking like they were not doing enough that they went the other way. I would lie to see how much of the economic cost associated with the storm is going to turn out to be from the over preparation.
If you want to know what our coastal cities are doing, look no further than NOLA or Houston/Galveston. It's been within 6 short years that both have seen major hurricane events, and rank #1 and #2 on the all-time costliest storms in US history. Yet, both communities are back to business as usual as before. The NOLA levees are no better than before, and there's a little less barrier island to protect them now. In Galveston and Bolivar peninsula, all of those beach houses and unprotected areas were built right back up again. However, consider as major of an outcome as hurricanes Katrina and Ike were, Katrina was only a Cat 3, and Ike a Cat 2. What happens when the real monster comes along, and pushes a storm surge twice as high, and rips every standing building apart with its tornado-like winds? City, county, and state officials never plan long-term, only short-term for their terms, then they move on without any responsibilty attached to it.
I believe you're mistaken. Katrina was a Cat 5, and Ike was a Cat 4. Compared to them, Irene was NOTHING - a Cat 1 that was quickly downgraded to a Tropical Storm.
Katrina crossed the coast as a CAT 2 As almost always it was the storm surge that caused the problem ( & building a city below sea level didn't help)
Hide from the wind: Run from the water.
To be honest NOAA, the NWS, NHC all did a suburb job, I forecast for my company & based on their data I predicted landfall (both landfalls, to within 2 miles and wind strengths very close to those observed) on info based on the agency data.
The post event guru's are very good at criticizing, but they're very quiet before the storm, as to the media they need viewers and will do what is required to get & keep them.
Without the evacuations the death toll could have been worse, a lot worse.
Global warming will not bring bigger storms. The Earth warmed for thirty years and tropical cyclone numbers trended downward for 30 years. But... now that the Earth is entering 30 years of cooling hold on to your hats. Just as the cooler Pacific (La Nina) helped build big storms this spring, just like another La Nina year 1974 there should be an uptick in tropical storms too. Yes there needs to be warm water for hurricanes but you still need interaction between cooler and warmer air masses to get everything circulating.
Of course Al Gore and the rest of the bunch will (already have) started to blame the cooling on man just like they blamed the warming on man.
There is no real evidence of any significant cooling; both air and ocean temperatures remain at record or near-record highs. (For example, NOAA reported 2010 tied with 2005 for the warmest year on record, globally.) If there is a slight cooling due to the sun or due to aerosols, it will likely not last long as greenhouse gas levels continue to rise.
The media? Hyping a story? For money? OMG! THIS NEVER HAPPENS!!
Do we really need to tie everything to global warming? Yes, it's happening. Relatively, no, its not a terribly big deal. We will run out of energy and into a Malthusian catastrophe long before global warming will have significantly changed our environment. (Carbon does have a large effect. Over the poles. Over the next couple hundred years. You are going to be dead by then.)
Intensity over the long term just isn't something we have the processing power for yet.
How were they to know that wind shear would continue in the southwest and inject relatively dry air all the way in to the core of the storm?
It's also incredibly fortunate for the entire east coast that the injection of dry air happened, otherwise you would have seen the terrible things they were predicting or worse. Further, the substantial errors in intensity were 3 days out, pretty much the whole time. If you were one of the few that paid close attention to the storm, the forecast 24 hours out was pretty much spot on for the duration.
That is a level of accuracy which was impossible 20 years ago. Computers 20 years from now might be able to exactly pin down a massive storm, if we can somehow get enough data.
Blaming/ignoring the messenger happens all the time, prudent folk will listen and their survival rates go up accordingly. The laws of Darwin sort out the rest.
As for the mayor of NYC, he's dammed if he does, dammed if he doesn't. Officials being too cautious in preparation of an unpredictable oncoming natural disaster is the exactly correct course of action. Just imagine if they had been too cautious in New Orleans...
Whether or not this is hype seems silly.
The real issue is, a storm like this is unpredictable, no matter what the scientific capabilities may be. This storm could've easily skirted the Carolinas and come right up and smacked the mouth of the Hudson river as a category 2 storm, or worse.
More importantly, in such a densely populated area of the country, you need to decide early whether to leave, and do so with an abundance of caution and respect for these hurricanes. These cyclones can be devastating, make no mistake.
HYPE!!! Just watch the Weather Channel, forecasts and the programming, for a huge dose of hype! The scientists can predict the weather events, intensity, path, etc. but that doesn't get research funding. If you solve the situation, the funding dries up. This is a "business" just like mining, oil, chemical, automakers, etc. there is an acceptable loss of life as long as the money keeps rolling in. HAHAHA Look at the medical industry for an example of these practices.
Why don't conservatives believe in science or scientists?
The way to get funding for science is by producing negative scientific reports with dire predictions?
Always better to be safe than sorry. If you choose not to heed any warnings in the future, the better for the human race that your genes are eliminated from the gene pool. Just natural selection at work.
The sad thing is people only think of hurricanes based on wind speed and not the potential of flooding associated with them. You don't need to hype up a storm that is 700 miles long and has created probably the worst flooding ever in 5 states. If you think about that for one second then you see how massive this storm was. Instead of screaming at the weather people you need to applaud them for nailing this one. Predicting the path of the storm is the most important so you can get people out of the way. We would be talking about a lot more lives lost today had they not evacuated certain areas. That is what protecting the masses means.
My God, think of the people who lives were SAVED because this "over-hyped"!!! Better SAFE than SORRY!!
Unfortunately there was no way. He went and left damage in the billions, and the lives that are gone and that is priceless.
Source: <a href="linkkei.com" target="_blank">linkkei.com</a>
Regarding the 'cry wolf' effect. I fully believe that it is a very real consideration. Of course the people who just experienced Irene didn't exhibit it, though, because they hadn't recently been forced to evacuate for no reason.
Consider, however, the travesty that was Hurricane Rita. Nobody seems to remember that fiasco. Mandatory evacuations all throughout Houston. The entire city ran out of gas trying to get out, thousands of people left stranded on the highways. But it occurred in the wake of Katrina, so everyone was terrified. People lost their lives simply trying to evacuate. It is difficult to describe just how ridiculous the evacuation situation played out.
And then Rita missed Houston almost completely. The total damage was much lower than expected. More people died trying to evacuate the Houston area than any direct hurricane-related deaths.
Now, this was a pretty major storm while it was in the Gulf. So perhaps the local government did the right thing by mandating evacuation. However, the fact remains that people were practically forced to undergo an extremely painful evacuation process, and they would have been just fine if they had simply stayed at home and boarded up their windows.
Did that lead to a 'cry wolf' effect? You better believe it! A couple of years later, Hurricane Ike rolled through, and a MUCH smaller proportion of Houstonians evacuated. And guess what, Ike did MUCH more damage than Rita did, and was generally MUCH more dangerous.
I understand the 'better safe than sorry' policy when it comes to potentially deadly natural disasters. But when they're wrong, I fully believe it puts future lives at risk because the credibility of the people giving the orders is put into doubt.
We over-hype everything these days---massive communication, journalists need a story, our general paranoia all lead to an excess of information, and most of it way over-blown... That said, I'm sure the poor folks who died in the storm would probably say it wasn't over-hyped, that there was really something to fear.
By citing Chris Mooney and Joey Romm, you lose all credability. Neither are scientists, they are corrupt Green activists.
Sea levels are still rising only a foot per century, not tens of feet like Romm other alarmists predict. Hurricane activity and landfalls are at record lows, increased damage is the result of too much seaside development.
This is not simply a black and white issue. The amount of over hyping is critical as well. The Media and the government overreacted, but not hugely. Sure they could have not evacuated Battery Park and the buses and subways could have continued some limited service, but there could also have been more evacuations and more costly preparations. What if all the bridges in the city had been shut down and what if 50,000 national guardsmen had been deployed and what if truck loads of sand had been brought into the city and people had spent Friday and Saturday filling up sandbags?
no insureance ? quick fix ... move to a country we bombed and presto a new house.
Coverage is over-hyped because we, the viewing public, want it that way, and we respond well when something is thoroughly hyped. That's our so-called "great" American culture now, the world we live in. Everything's got to be at blaring levels to get any attention. It's got to be louder, louder, and louder all the time, else it's deemed to be not worthy of attention. Also... way too many people have microphones and soapboxes now, adding to the cacophony every minute.
what i have learnt from irene horricane is (( that any arrogant one.. that has an unfair play all over the world ,and share war in every hole on the earth and kill thousands of innocent people just for there benifits (such as usa government) ,it has to be punnished from a greater and more powerful one ....that is {allah} the god of every one and every thing >>>>>>>>>> but we are so sorry for the dead people and for the ones who lost there power(it is not their fault)
I do not mind saying that I thought they were over hyping it but apparently they were not, I apologize.