BEWARE THE HYPE MONGER

Forecasting the weather is one of the most difficult jobs one could set out to do. At least in terms of getting it right. In fact it's so hard to do that people joke about how they wish they had a job where they could be wrong 75% of the time and still keep their job.

Earth is a very big planet. Not by Jupiter standards of course, but still plenty big, and a million things factor into our weather. From ocean currents, to the atmosphere, to volcanic activity, to the tilt of the earth relative to the sun, to the sun itself affecting our weather, there's a whole lot going on that makes up our weather. Even with the technology we have available here in the 21st century, predicting Mother Nature is far from an exact science. And technology we do have now. We've come a long way from relying on the Farmer's Almanac to make weather predictions. Now we have satellites all over the globe giving us a view of every inch of the planet and all the weather taking place all at the same time.

One of the main forecasting tools we have now are computer models. These models are fed data and they then project forecast trends of that data. Two of the more familiar models are the Global Forecast System (GFS), run by the National Weather Service, and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMRWF), or what is more familiarly referred to as the EURO. Even with the super computers and the ton of information they can handle, these models are far from perfect, which again shows just how hard it is to predict this planet's weather.

When it comes to the tropics, the GFS and the EURO are still the 2 most relied upon models. Again these models are far from perfect. In fact, these models can show biases and one can be more reliable than the other at different times of the year, particularly when it comes to predicting tropical cyclone genesis. For example, the GFS over the years, has shown a bias to spin up stronger storms in May, before the official tropical season even gets started. Even when there is tropical formation in the month of May, it is usually nothing more than tropical storm intensity, with some not even becoming fully tropical (subtropical). Not that there aren't hurricanes in May, but there's only been 3 since 1900, and the last one was Hurricane Alma in 1970.

For the last 7 years in a row, there has been preseason tropical activity before the official June 1st start. 9 storms have formed in that 7 year period, all but 2 in the month of May. The strongest of those May storms was Tropical Storm Alberto in 2018. Alberto formed off the Yucatan coast in the Caribbean, and basically headed due north towards the Florida panhandle. Alberto's peak was 65 mph, but when it made landfall near Laguna Beach, FL, it was a minimal tropical storm with 45 mph winds. 

We are just days away from the start of the 2022 hurricane season, and as of this writing, it's looking like our 7 year preseason streak might be coming to an end. About a week ago though, you would have thought the end of the world was nigh with what the GFS model was spinning up, and what I would call, irresponsible and out of context reporting of it, which is a major problem in just about all aspects of reporting in this age of social media.

Here are 2 model runs of the GFS last week. The 1st image shows a 971 millibar system making landfall along the Florida Gulf coast. That's equivalent to a category 2 hurricane. The 2nd image, a model that was run 2 days later, and has a borderline cat 3 hurricane hitting New Orleans. Both of these model runs are 246 and 282 hours into the future respectively. That's 10-12 days. It's hard enough making weather forecasts 2-3 days in advance, but 10-12 days? Not only that, but this model was projecting a cat 2/cat 3 hurricane in May? The only presumed cat 2 ever in May was in 1863.

Now, if it was October, this model wouldn't be so far fetched, but in May, it's a little out there. Then there's the fact that not only did no other model, EURO, Canadian, nothing else, not have a hurricane forming, very few of the runs from these other models even had a tropical storm forming. Not to mention the wind shear in the Caribbean and Gulf are extremely high, which if a storm did form and moved into the Gulf, that wind shear would keep it's intensity levels at a minimum, if it didn't just blow it apart. Yet the GFS was consistent with this forecast for several days.

The biggest issue however, comes from social media. The good thing about social media is that professional meteorologists can communicate with the public in an instant. The bad part of it is, every Tom, Dick and Harry, tries to make a name for him or herself, and sometimes they'll hype something up in order to get more views to their social media accounts. And that's exactly what happened this past week with regards to these runs by the GFS, a model known to be on steroids early in the season.

One Twitter account I follow, and should probably unfollow, was constantly making tweets about being on the lookout for a possible category 2 or stronger hurricane striking the Gulf coast. They were going solely on what the overaggressive GFS was forecasting. And even though they did give a disclaimer that the chances of it playing out like that were low, they never backed down from hyping it up, never mentioned that no other model was supporting it, or that with the strong wind shear it wouldn't even be possible for a storm to get that strong. To me, that's irresponsible hype mongering.

That creates another problem because if this hype happens again and again, where little to nothing ever comes of it, then people start to downplay it. Then the one time that the hype happens to play out, there are people who won't believe it until it's too late. That's not good.

And as it turned out, the GFS finally came to it's senses and fell in line with ALL of the other models, and nothing ever came of the disturbance that was supposed to spawn a cat 3 hurricane in May.

So my message here is, be wary of who you get your information from, especially when it deals with potentially life threatening weather events. And that includes getting your info from Texas Tropics. I'm not a professional. I would say always defer to the professionals, but even professional meteorologists on TV can hype things up to try to get viewership up. So your best bet, at least when it comes to the tropics, is the National Hurricane Center. Those guys are pretty good at what they do, but even they can miss. Just go back to Hurricane Grace last year for proof of that. They initially had Grace heading into Florida, and it ended up striking Mexico twice. Forecasting the weather is hard, especially several days in advance.

Here at Texas Tropics, I will always try to provide the information from the professionals, and try to seek out and squash the overzealous, irresponsible, hype mongering click baiters. I'll have my own opinions from time to time as well, and sometimes it may clash with what the NHC is saying, but I'll still tell you to defer to them.

In fact, instead of promoting myself, I'll recommended some trusted sites that I get most of my information from. The 1st, of course, is the National Hurricane Center. Tropical Tidbits is a great place to check out all of the models, and Dr. Levi Cowan there provides some very insightful information in his video blogs, and then there's Mike's Weather Page, where you'll find just about every tropics related maps there are including satellite views. Or you can just stay with me and I'll relay the necessary info, especially if Texas is in the mix, and I'll definitely always try to keep the hype in check, unless and until it's warranted.