HURRICANE FORECASTING: THE SCAM CONTINUES

Well, the 2013 hurricane season officially ends next weekend. So it is time, once again, to ridicule the so-called hurricane forecasters. If you were paying any attention back in May, just before the beginning of this year’s hurricane season, the so-called experts were again predicting an “extremely active season.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that 7-11 hurricanes would form. Accuweather predicted eight hurricanes. William Klotzbach and William Gray, the supposed experts from Colorado State University, downgraded their predictions in August to eight hurricanes with three being Category 3 or higher. For those of us who live in Key West, those kind of predictions are scary as hell– until you realize that (1) these so-called experts have a less than impressive record of accurate forecasts and (2) they do not even pretend to know when or where the hurricanes they predict will hit.

But no matter. Back in June, the local and national media picked up the predictions of the so-called experts and solemnly announced the bad news– the 2013 hurricane season would be more active than usual with multiple hurricanes! OMG! Are we all going to die! Also, the scare ads for hurricane shutters and other storm-related products quickly appeared, citing that “the experts are predicting a very active hurricane season this year and you better buy our stuff or your family is going to die!’ (Well, maybe I exaggerated those sales pitches just a bit.)

But, once again, Key Westers know what actually happened here this year. Or better said, what didn’t happen. Nothing. No hurricanes. Not one. And the same for last year and the year before– despite the expert’s predictions that those seasons would also be “active.”

Make no mistake, we are thankful that we have not been beaten up by hurricanes for the past several years. But the question is once against being begged: What’s the point of continuing to make these annual predictions which are almost never accurate and are absolutely never specific? When pinned down, the “experts” will admit that just about the only plausible purpose of their annual exercise is to increase “awareness” of people who live by the ocean and to encourage them to be prepared. Okay, we’ll buy that. But we will wager that most Keys residents are more than aware of the dangers of hurricanes and do not need a bunch of guesswork predictions to make us “aware” that one or more storms might come to visit us during the summer. After all, many of us were here in 2005– one of the the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons in recorded history– when Hurricane Wilma came to call. Oh, yes, Bubba! We are aware.

What we here in Key West really would like to know from the “experts” at the beginning of hurricane season is how many of their predicted hurricanes are going to hit here and when. Of course, we are well aware that nobody can know that information more than a few days in advance– not even those two guys at Colorado State. So the point here, once again, is that you simply cannot take these pre-season predictions seriously. Even if you do want to assume that they might be right, all they are really “predicting” is that an unknown number of hurricanes may or may not form during the upcoming summer and that they may or may not hit at some unknown point along the coast of the USA at some unknown date.

How helpful is that for residents of the Keys? It is not only not helpful, some might say it is downright ridiculous! And when the national media picks up those non-predictions, that could (and probably does) negatively affect our tourism-related economy.

Just for your information, here are some of the excuses the “experts” are using to try to explain why their predictions this year were so wrong: Several tropical storms that may have turned into hurricanes dissipated when they ran into dry air and wind shear as they moved across the Atlantic. Strong winds blowing west off the Sahara Desert. Colder than normal ocean surface temperature west of Portugal. El Nino didn’t show up. An extensive drought in northeast Brazil. The Red Sox won the World Series. (I made that last one up.)

Dennis Reeves Cooper founded Key West The Newspaper in 1994 and was editor and publisher for 18 years until he retired last year.