Hurricane Helene / Milton

bainbridge said:
But it wasn't preparing for 5 feet and getting 6. It was preparing for 15 and receiving 5.

I'm not saying I would not have evacuated or that I would have ignored official advice.

I'm just saying they shouldn't inflate the figures to scare people into taking action, if that was indeed what they did.

Of course it could have been the dedicated weather networks grabbing viewers using pretty women in front of fancy graphics showing the height of the surge..
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Same principle applies. Preparing for more saves lives. The margins of error = death.

What you are asking for is higher risk of death.
 
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bainbridge said:
If the forecast is repeatedly over hyped, would this not cause a boy who cried wolf scenario when the big one hits?

Id rather be given their most accurate honest estimation, to enable me to make an; informed decision.
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How do you know it was not their most accurate and honest estimatation?
 
To be honest considering the hyped up power of the storm and " PEOPLE WILL DIE, RECORD BREAKING STORM " it was a bit of a wimp!

I mean just look at the all the houses standing up still made of brick and wood
 
Neil79 said:
To be honest considering the hyped up power of the storm and " PEOPLE WILL DIE, RECORD BREAKING STORM " it was a bit of a wimp!

I mean just look at the all the houses standing up still made of brick and wood
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People did die.

Possibly less due to the numbers of people that did evacuate.

Just because people didn't die, doesn't mean the reason for less deaths was due to the low category of storm..
 
Some people want perfection on predicting forecasts. Trump voters or wannabe Trump voters. Electric shark people aka nutcases. Bring back lunatic assylums . People named Neil who arent astronauts need airfrying.
 
Werewolf said:
The loss of credibility is always possible, but largely unavoidable. You don't give a stern enough warning and the storm is at the worse end of the scale and you get screams of "why didn't you warn us early enough", you issue the warnings early enough to give people a chance to reach safety and it turns out the storm isn't as bad as it looked 48 hours earlier (which is a fairly long time in accurate forecasting) and you get "see they were making a fuss about nothing".

You can't get 100% accuracy with forecasting, as was shown by the fact the storm as IIRC getting better and worse and it was moving up and down the scale, which means that any predictions would be getting changes repeatedly.
It's the reason why they give things like the possible height range of the flooding, and show the potential areas it'll affect, usually with the "most likely" route etc

Unfortunately with storms like this one especially, where it was at times one of the worst in recorded history the models break down a bit because there is not enough data for more accuracy, chances are the next similar storm in the same area will get a slightly more accurate set of predictions because they refine the models constantly based on what they've learned.

Basically the forecasters and government are screwed if they give the warning, and screwed if they don't, but they'll tend to err on the side of not needing the body bags and DNA/dental identification as their primary objective is to prevent avoidable deaths.
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Warning of what *could* happen is one thing. (The statement that "We won't know until it's too late, so leave now." was the correct approach in my view.)

Acting as if you are certain of what *will* happen is another.

The later makes you look incompetent, dishonest, or some combination thereof when your predictions (proclaimed with authoritative certainty no less) fail to materialize.

If the goal is to save lives, pretending to be certain, when you aren't (or at least shouldn't be) is short sighted because anyone can predict anything. Once you lose your credibility, the public will ignore you, (Like the boy who cried wolf) and people will die.
 
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Twinz said:
Warning of what *could* happen is one thing. (The statement that "We won't know until it's too late, so leave now." was the correct approach in my view.)

Acting as if you are certain of what *will* happen is another.

The later makes you look incompetent, dishonest, or some combination thereof when your predictions (proclaimed with authoritative certainty no less) fail to materialize.

If the goal is to save lives, pretending to be certain, when you aren't (or at least shouldn't be) is short sighted because anyone can predict anything. Once you lose your credibility, the public will ignore you, (Like the boy who cried wolf) and people will die.
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This is the point I was trying to make, but I didn't word it as well.
 
bjorkiii said:
People named Neil who arent astronauts need airfrying.
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bainbridge said:
But it wasn't preparing for 5 feet and getting 6. It was preparing for 15 and receiving 5.

I'm not saying I would not have evacuated or that I would have ignored official advice.

I'm just saying they shouldn't inflate the figures to scare people into taking action, if that was indeed what they did.

Of course it could have been the dedicated weather networks grabbing viewers using pretty women in front of fancy graphics showing the height of the surge..
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Then you're being stupid its like those people who refuse to budge during a hurricane or other disaster and then have to get rescued by the services from their homes because their lives are in danger and put others out or even risk their lives for them on account of their own stubborn refusal to accept advice
 
Werewolf said:
Weather reporting, especially for hurricanes etc is always "within a range", and that's even more so for something like this one which at points was one of the 4 or 5 strongest recorded in human history and as I understand it pushing the boundaries of what is theoretically possible for one.
That means that the models they're using won't be as accurate as say for a lower power storm as they've got a lot more data on storms within the "normal" range.

You prepare for the worst possible part of that range, because if you prepare for a 5 foot surge and get 15 foot you end up with tens of thousands of dead in what were likely considered "safe" areas, including people who'd evacuated to "refuges centres" that were fine for 5 foot but not for 10, let alone 15.

So the cost of getting it wrong one way is purely monetary, the cost of getting it wrong the other is not only much more expensive, but also a lot of deaths.
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You have to issue warnings in advance because by the time the danger has arrived its too late to leave so they based their prediction on what the storm was like at the time i.e. a cat 5 the fact it weakened by the time it arrived is hardly anything to be criticized for if they'd waited it'd be too late for anyone to do anything with the information. The level of denial and false information is already off the scale they're even getting death threats, madness


www.theguardian.com

‘It’s mindblowing’: US meteorologists face death threats as hurricane conspiracies surge

Storms Helene and Milton have triggered rise of misinformation stoked by Trump and fellow Republicans
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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