Was it Over-Hype?

It’s easy to “Monday morning quarterback”, but it appears the Storm Prediction Center’s forecast for a PDS (particularly dangerous situation) was incorrect.   SPC came out over the weekend with a moderate risk for tornadoes and the media ran with it.  The Weather Channel sent Cantore out with the storm chasers and the local media in Oklahoma followed.  In fact, my youngest son lives in Oklahoma City and he says the local stations stayed on wall to wall each showing the same things over and over.   Blame us for watching such drama.  My concern is we will see another tragic scene of multiple deaths when storm chasers get too close to a shifting tornado.  My other concern is the same concern I have for the 7 day “ forecast”.  SPC issued their convective outlook 3 days ahead of time…good for emergency managers, but bad for the general public since they believe an outlook is a forecast.    Some may say…”better safe than sorry”.  However, what I have seen over the years is a public that, time after time hears the media cry wolf, and tunes them out when real danger threatens.    The forecasters at SPC are really good and I have never remembered them missing on a one day convective outlook area.   However, coming out 3 days ahead of time and then missing or over-hyping does not strengthen confidence in the forecast.  It’s the same thing with the 5 day hurricane forecast, but at least NHC has their cone of error to show the UNCERTAINTY.  That’s what most folks don’t understand, the uncertainty of any forecast.

 

Which ties in to the daily hype on Climate Change.  We can’t go a day or two without another story detailing how the climate is changing.   There is little debate about the fact the last 30 years have seen a warming cycle with 2 strong El Niño’s.   The debate is what’s driving the warming?   Many government funded scientists believe it’s CO2 (Man made) while many more operational forecasters, climatologists, geologists, chemists etc. believe it’s something else.  What we see is only the side that wants to change how we live.  Do you know how many billions are spent funding studies on climate change?   Those scientists are not about to end that gravy train of money.  Money, Power, Control…that’s what it’s all about.  One story I read says that 40% of climate change is due to the world’s animals (methane).  Gets you thinking doesn’t it?