I’m annoyed. Prior to this season you can find reams of reports from “quality” sources (including NOAA) that predicted quite clearly how bad a hurricane season this would be. It wasn’t. At all, yet now these same people are desperately trying to obfuscate the data to sound like they nailed the prediction.

To be clear and to set baselines, for the last nearly 4 decades the average is 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major storms (cat 3 or above). They predicted a 70% chance of being way above average and a 10% chance of being below average. As we stand today with a nearly zero percent chance of any more hurricanes we are at 13, 5, and 4. None of which touched the US.

Yes, if you live on an island in the ocean your results will vary. I however do not. Any reasonable way of looking at those numbers show they missed their mark on the high side. Which we all know they are always going to guess high because the $$$ lies in high not low.

It’s just annoying to me that they just can’t say, “we were off, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we predicted”. That’s because they are just guessing. As we used to say, not a wag but a swag, a SCIENTIFICALLY wild ass guess.

That is all.

By the way their guess was 13-19, so one below to basically 40% window above average. I wish I got windows that big when I had to guess stuff.

It's probably NOT actually a swag, more like a PFA SWAG, Pulled From the Air Semi Wild Ass Guess.

lol. Probably true.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:
It's probably NOT actually a swag, more like a PFA SWAG, Pulled From the Air Semi Wild Ass Guess.

Change the Air to my Ass and you’ll have a 70% chance of being right!!

I used to live on two different Islands (Galveston and Hatteras) and the media hype in these areas is off the charts. The true locals who have lived on these islands for generations have a much different take on the weather. Of course, they don’t live right on the beach either…

I didn't believe them in the first place (preseason predicitons are just a bunch of hot air) and I'm glad they were wrong:

Selfishly - I was out of the country at peak hurricane season, and then had the ruptured achilles tendon for the 2nd half of hurricane season. A hurricane hitting Houston would've been rough for me.

No American in CONUS was subjected to FEMA's anemic response or the Red Cross fundraising then not spending the funds on responding to the hurricane.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
It’s just annoying to me that they just can’t say, “we were off, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we predicted”. That’s because they are just guessing. As we used to say, not a wag but a swag, a SCIENTIFICALLY wild ass guess.

Almost nobody in the weather forecast community does this. Houston is fortunate in that we have Space City weather which is hype free forecasting and they actually admit when they were wrong on a forecast.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

All predictions except mine were off this year because they didn’t have the important variables, specifically, that I took out 14 trees from my small yard prior to the start of hurricane season.

As soon as the last one came down I said we wouldn’t see a single storm make landfall this year.

^^^ Similar happened to me when I had the Kohler whole house generator installed in 2018. First multi-day outage was Feb '21 (i.e. Winter Storm Uri) and first hurricane was Beryl in July '24.

Weather forecasting: The only job where you can be wrong 80% of the time and not get fired.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
Weather forecasting: The only job where you can be wrong 80% of the time and not get fired.

And in television if you rise to the top you work second shift.

It's not only Hurricane forecasting/prediction. Here we may see a forecast predicting rain for the next 7 days. Nope, none, nadda. Or the new WEATTTTHHHHHER IMPAAAACCTT STATEMMMMMENT! warning you there may be rain for your Independence Day picnic.

There will always be an incredible amount of noise and wind...

But it will only be from politicians and those soliciting for grant money and research funds.

Up North this Winter will be cold at times, various snowstorms included.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
There will always be an incredible amount of noise and wind...

But it will only be from politicians and those soliciting for grant money and research funds.

That’s what I was thinking. Hard to get funding if you say everything will be fine.

Noticed that there were non in the Gulf of America this year. Guess the name change scared them off.

Yeah the expert predictions were a big bust for 2025.

I’m near Pensacola. Trying to get out of state friends and family to come visit in the summer or early fall when it’s nicest is a chore. They want to come when going to beach is great etc. but I tell them July/august/ September could be the worst for hurricanes and you’d have a week+ notice of a hurricane and several days notice as it gets closer. Bug buying plane tickets months in advance they all get cold feet. Fine whatever. SUN 11/23 we went to the beach was 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Come for Christmas I guess

Nice!

It’s time for these same folks to predict the winter weather. Locally they are busting to say that four letter word. LMAO when they call for 4-6 inches and I look out the next morning at grass.

I gave up on anything more than tomorrow for weather forecasting when they started using terms like "polar vortex." We used to call it a "cold snap."

Look at the forcasting of Camille in 1969. Great improvement from then. What is important is where they hit not how many there are. It means thousands of dollars to the local economy if evacuation is ordered.