Results 1 to 3 of 3
-
04-19-2019, 09:33 AM #1
NHC releases 86-page report on Hurricane Michael -- officially upgraded to Cat 5
Only the 4th category 5 hurricane ever to hit the U.S.
Here's a link to the report.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL142018_Michael.pdf
-
04-19-2019, 05:26 PM #2
Re: NHC releases 86-page report on Hurricane Michael -- officially upgraded to Cat 5
The following is a very detailed description of what they think occurred. The last statement says this is our best guess at this point, but things could change based on some more obscure math models, and more massaging of suspect data already collected.
I am saying that they could be as accurate if they strapped Jim Cantore to a vertical I beam that was driven 20 feet into the beach sand, and let him hold a child's pinwheel that was attached to a large bicycle inner tube and held facing the wind for 10 seconds. The number of twists of the inner tube times the diameter of the pin wheel divided by the coefficient of friction between the sand in the air and the blades of the pin wheel would not only make Jim a very happy camper but it would also make for great theater on the weather channel. Would not tell them squat about the wind speed, but it would be a good exercise in absurd comedy.seeya
dan
I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.
-
04-23-2019, 01:33 PM #3
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Kirkland, WA
- Posts
- 2,806
Re: NHC releases 86-page report on Hurricane Michael -- officially upgraded to Cat 5
Your synopsis is 100% incorrect. By phrasing it "what they think happened", you imply they are just pulling it out of their ass, when you couldn't be any MORE wrong. Ignoring your hyperbolic statements about Jim Cantore, this analysis is QUITE sound. There was no "massaging" the data, instead they were revising an analysis based on a much larger data pool. Every decision on data sources were data-based analyses on why said source is more or less reliable. Furthermore, the previous real-time data provides a "minimum" for how bad things they are and they provide error bars for their revised analysis. At the end of the day, the refinement is VERY minor (from 135knt to 140knt) and the change from Cat 4 to Cat 5 is entirely due to the boundary. The difference between a 135knt storm and a 140knt storm is low.
For those that care about science, here's some snips of what the report ACTUALLY says and a more layman's translation:
While these observations are well below both the operational and final best track intensities, the observing sites were likely not optimally located to sample the maximum winds, which is typical during landfalling hurricanes.
Michael’s estimated intensity at landfall in Florida is 140 kt. While the real-time operational estimate was 135 kt, the final best track intensity estimate was determined by a detailed post-storm analysis review of the available aircraft winds, surface winds, surface pressures, satellite intensity estimates, and Doppler radar velocities – including data and analyses that were not available in real time. It should be noted that the NHC best track intensities typically have an uncertainty of around ±10%
Parts 1-5 under Winds and Pressure are them going through each data source, what the data source says and why it is more or less accurate. These data sources are what they use to calculate the revised values.
From there, it then goes on to analyze how well the various forecasting models did, etc.
A verification of NHC official track forecasts for Michael is given in Table 5a. The average official track forecast errors were smaller than the mean official errors for the previous 5-yr period at all forecast times.
Average official intensity forecast errors were significantly larger than the mean official errors for the previous 5-yr period. Table 6b has a similar verification for the NHC Michael intensity forecasts including the forecasts issued before it became a tropical cyclone, and the forecast errors were again significantly large. A homogeneous comparison of the official intensity errors with selected guidance models is given in Table 6c. While the official forecasts were poor compared to the
5-yr mean, they were better than almost all of the intensity guidance forecasts, trailing only the HWRF model (HWFI) at one time, 48 h.Last edited by PedroDaGr8; 04-23-2019 at 01:56 PM.
Bookmarks