Extreme Weather Hype

This is a blog post dealing with weather hyperbole. While it deals with a meteorological subject, it is an option piece based on my personal views.  

 

Everywhere I look I see references to extreme global events.  The main stream media and even several weather sites are IMO hyping global weather events. The heat waves, droughts, flood, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, ocean temperatures. They say the snow and ice melt have never been worse than they are right now. The same sources promote the idea that things will even get worse as we move forward. The reason that they cite for all of this is human-driven climate change.

Before I get into my thoughts. I want to state up front, that I'm not a proponent on the idea of humankind being the prime driver of climate change.  I'm a firm believer in natural processes and cyclical oscillation as the driving factors behind the weather we experience.  I'm not saying people don't have an impact, because we do. And it's a big impact. But natural processes make by far a much bigger impact. The Earth's climate has always changed and forever will: with humankind or without humankind.  But this post isn't really about climate change; it's about extreme weather; I just wanted to put my bias out there.

We hear the term extreme weather all the time. This storm or that storm is always the worst that can happen. The Weather Channel (TWC) has been naming winter storms. We often hear main stream media quoting insane statistics; or saying how many millions of people are going to be impacted by this or that event. The statistics can often be true. But that is in the eye of the beholder.  They can say that this storm or that storm is the worst one since 2012. Yes in context it's the worst storm, but only since 2012, it's not the worst storm ever in the history of humankind.     IMO it is a tactic used to bring eyes and ears to a certain outlet. But many outlets go beyond just hyping or overplaying a particular weather event. These outlets make it more of a scare-fest. Hurricanes and winter storms are the two things that are hyped the most.  We hear words, like historic, paralyzing, catastrophic, crippling, epic, and disastrous all the time.

As of this writhing, I think Hurricane Lane in the Pacific is a good example of what I'm talking about.  (I wrote this part of the post when hurricane Lane was impacting Hawaii).

 Hurricane Lane  was and still is a slow mover and has brought lots of rain to the big island and some of the other islands in the Hawaiian chain. But as far as hurricane winds it was never going to be that big of a deal. The setup in the Pacific was always going to make a direct landfall on the Hawaiian Islands a very long shot.  The pressures inside the of Lane had been steadily rising for over the 24 hours before he got close to the Hawaiian Islands.. That is surely a sign of a hurricane that is losing its battle.

 Lane was always going to move into an area of high wind shear. It is also a well known fact that that wind shear would blow the top of Lane away from the low level circulation. It rapidly intensified and it also rapidly abated. Again this was an outcome that was always most likely. The NHC and the Central Hurricane Center had Lane's track too far north, but they still had a fairly good handle on the track of the hurricane; but IMO, they didn't have as good a handle on the strength forecast for Lane. That is not a criticism, as track and strength in a tropical cyclone can be a hard variable to get a handle on.  Tropical rainfall is always the number one danger with tropical cyclones. And that is a serious danger.  Because of his slow movement, he dropped a lot of rain on some parts of the island chain.

 I'm not trying to downplay flooding issues with hurricane Lane. But we have to keep things in perspective. The Hawaiian Islands are in the tropics with very high terrain. The islands do have low elevation and high elevation rain forest. So rain and a lot of it is the norm. Parts of the Hawaiian Islands are in the top ten rainiest spots on Earth. Four feet of rain in a few days is a lot, no matter where you're at. But Hawaii isn't Houston, Texas.  Houston average annual rainfall is close to 50 inches.  Hurricane Harvey brought over 40 inches of rain to Houston with rainfall amounts of around 60 inches northeast of the City. The historic rainfall brought widespread flooding.  Hurricane Lane dropped 40-50 inches of rain across east Hawaii. That is enough to make it the third highest rainfall in the U.S. caused by a tropical cyclone since 1950. Lane did indeed cause flash flooding; But going back to that perspective idea, parts of the Hawaiian Islands see over 400 inches of rain on average annually, which means some years see a lot more than 400 inches a year. So while the Houston area saw around 100% of their annual rainfall from Harvey, Hawaii only saw around 10% of theirs from Lane. So it doesn't have the same meaning. But that be as it may.....The meteorology side of all this has overall basically been well handled.  But the way the news outlets and TWC have been reporting on Lane has been an issue, at least IMO.

 

Dan Kottlowski, Hurricane Expert at "AccuWeather" said: "Lane has the potential of bringing the state of Hawaii serious and perhaps record damage".

 "The Weather Channel" Meteorologist and director of weather presentation, Mike Chesterfield said: "For the record, hurricane force winds for Oahu would be disastrous. Unfortunately the worst case scenario is still on the table".

 "Fox News" Meteorologist, Janice Deah said: "Hurricane Lane is the Closest a storm of this strength has been to Hawaii in recorded history. It could cause catastrophic damage"

There are many other examples I can post.  

 

This same approach is brought to bear for winter storms. During the winter we hear about the Polar Vortex, bomb cyclones,  Bombogenesis,  and explosive cyclogenesis. These are valid terms that describe meteorological concepts. But the way they are used by the media is anything but.    It seems every snowstorm is going to be a history maker, every cold snap is given the impression of becoming the next ice age.  Snowstorms have to have sic names like "Snowmageddon", "snowpocalypse", "snowquester",  and "Snowtober"  Winter storm Juno, was initially described as going to be the biggest snowstorm in New York City history.

Back in 2015 winter storm Juno was dubbed to one of the worst blizzards to ever hit the East Coast and was going to be the worst winter storm to ever hit New York City. The headlines during the days leading up to the blizzard were dire and menacing . People panicked, grocery stores and home improvement stores were left with bare shelves. Schools and work places closed, even in areas that ended up not seeing much in the way of snow. Subways were shutdown, driving bans were put in place well ahead of the storm. But the storm tracked well east; so the impact wasn't nowhere near as bad as the media had insinuated.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to minimize the impacts Juno caused, while those in New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey didn't see a lot of snow, parts of New England did end up with moderate to heavy snow. So it did have an impact just not the one that it was hyped to be.    We saw a lot of hype when the Northeast saw four nor'easters in a row during the winter of 2017-2018. There are many other examples I can show.  

What I just posted are facts, we can debate the reasons all of these measures and things were done and said. But we can't dispute the facts. I've had discussions about all of this with many people, the reasons many give all of this is to make people pay attention in order to save lives. They admit to the hype, but no one wants to  repeat a disaster like Katrina; so hyperbole can be overlooked and justified.  I understand the concept but don't agree with the method. It's not like the places hyped for hurricanes or snowstorms haven't had them before. Many times the storms in the past have been far worse than the ones hyped. I mean hurricanes have hit Hawaii and the Gulf and East Coast before...Snowstorms and blizzards have hit the Middle Atlantic and Northeast before, so these things are hardly new concepts. Talking and warning of storms is one thing, but every season the storm hype gets more and more exaggerated; this or that has never happened before, nothing has been this extreme before.   In my option, the media is able to do this because most people don't understand the difference between weather and climate. So hypesters are able to use one to dramatize the other, But take it from me weather isn't climate, and climate isn't weather. 

The scare-fest used by the media and even some weather outlets is a huge problem. Some of these outlets might be trying to impress the potential danger of a storm. But I don't think the ends justify the means. Instead of making people more aware and safe, after awhile it has the exact opposite effect. The cry wolf falls onto deaf ears. When I was chasing tornadoes I saw how hype and over-warning leads to deaths.  Often it's not what is said, but how it's implied. This is a much bigger problem than many people think. When people say "here we go again", or "I don't believe it"  forecasters have lost the argument.  The cry wolf hype, instead makes them stay home and watch the "Wheel Of Fortune".  We have multi layers to the warning side of weather forecasting...but the weak link in the warning process is public education and perception. This is a pet peeve of mine, and why I post in this blog and on my Facebook weather pages; I try to promote understanding, awareness and education in all of this, in a way people can truly understand. 

The news media, both local and large scale has the same problem. Station managers and corporate executives. They have business degrees, but don't have any idea how weather truly works. So everything comes down to the bottom line of viewers and money. The bigger the storm the greater the opportunity to get eyes and ears on a particular outlet. All these outlets have to compete with each other. So the weather hype gets worse and worse as they fight for likes, and views.   Some have told me " I was all prepared, I'm happy things turned out fine, at least I got a couple of days off". But most don't have this attitude, instead they get angry.  When municipalities over prepare for a storm that didn't occur it can cost millions of dollars. When people aren't working employers and companies loose lots of money in lost revenue and no production.  IMO, all of this is a huge deal. Hype is a real problem that leads to loss of life and cost millions of dollars. People hype weather because it brings views to their site or outlet.  The problem gets worse and worse. It's a big problem that I don't know how to fix.