Hurricane Disputes...

Now that the 2007 Hurricane Season is over, it's kinda fun to read the various blogs talking about how the "seasonal forecasters" could be so wrong. Stu Ostro on The Weather Channel's blog rants about how useless these seasonal forecast are. On http://icecap.us , Dr. Neil Frank, former Director of the National Hurricane Center (now with KHOU-TV, Houston) is quoted as saying, ..."They (NHC) seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," and "would put at least 4 storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six." Pretty strong stuff coming from the former NHC Director!

Now you may ask..."why should we care"? Because, as I have said before, the insurance companies use these seasonal forecasts to keep our rates artifically high. The National Hurricane Center must be VERY CAREFUL when 1) they name a storm and even more so 2) when they upgrade the storm to a hurricane. When NHC says a storm becomes a hurricane, millions of us have our "hurricane deductible" go into effect meaning the insurance industry saves billions of dollars. Take a look back at Humberto...NHC upgraded it to a hurricane just before landfall. There were no hurricane force winds reported at the surface, but becase NHC called it a hurricane (based on aircraft & Satellite data), many folks in Texas & Louisiana had to pay out of their pockets the hurricane deductible. What harm could it have been to just keep it a strong Tropical Storm since it was almost on land? It costs folks money and for marginal storms, I think that's wrong. I say error on the side of the people. What do you think?

This week we'll see a big cool down but no real freezing weather is in sight for the Southshore. In fact, looking long range I see no freezes likely for the next 2 weeks.