+- Earthwaves Earth Sciences Forum (http://www.earthwaves.org/forum)
+-- Forum: Earthwaves (http://www.earthwaves.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=16)
+--- Forum: Earth Sciences (http://www.earthwaves.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=11)
+--- Thread: spectacularly inacurrate intensity forecasts Hurricane Blanca (/showthread.php?tid=268)
spectacularly inacurrate intensity forecasts Hurricane Blanca - Island Chris - 06-06-2015
The National Hurricane Center has been issuing incredibly inaccurate intensity forecasts for east Pacific Hurricane Blanca. Excuse the units, but 3 days ago it was about 120 mph and they predicted it would go up to 160 mph. It instead dropped to 90 mph (maybe 100 mph for the time they predicted 160). Yesterday early, when it was at 90 mph, they predicted it would maintain that strength for maybe 12 hours (I could check), and then weaken and be a strong Tropical Storm as it approached the tip of Baja California. Well, it again did the opposite and at the last advisory it is at 130 mph.
The archive of forecasts for this storm is at:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2015/refresh/BLANCA+shtml/143404.shtml?
being a weather nerd, like half the population of Rhode Island, I read the Discussions.
On the other hand, the NHC was very accurate with the path of the storm so far.
This is something to think about if you live in Florida...or Rhode Island. On the other hand, there are likely far more data for the Atlantic basin than for the east Pacific.
Because it is headed to Cabo/Baba, the NHC sent a hurricane hunter aircraft there to fly through the storm. It was interesting to me that generally all the winds were below hurricane strength except one tiny area was 90 mph. This bears on the size of the waves. Last June, a 90 mph hurricane passed 300 miles (450 km) south of Rhode Island, and there were almost no waves at all here. In past storms from this area, there were big waves. I guessed that the wind was not making it to the sea surface at the time. Now I see that this happens.
Chris