Hurricane Matthew swipes Florida; Media hyperbole
By
Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor
Published Oct 7, 2016 9:12 AM EST
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Updated Oct 26, 2016 2:11 PM EST
NOTE:
I may update this blog later today, but for updates in real-time, visit my Facebook & Twitter pages.
3 p.m. Oct. 7, 2016: Over 1,000,000 are without power in Florida now, and they've started in Georgia Hoax photos have started being shared around, including the classic "shark in street," the 2009 Daytona Speedway flood, and photos of dolphins being tossed in the wind.
1 p.m. Oct. 7, 2016: The storm continues to crawl up the Florida coast with wind gusts over 70 mph; 910,000 have lost power so far (685,000 out right now).
10 a.m. Oct. 7, 2016: Hurricane Matthew is making his closest approach to the Florida Coast this morning. Florida Power & Light reports over 700,000 customers lost power, with about half a million currently without power. The storm has just barely, if at all, entered into the "area of no hurricane tracks" on the east coast of Florida.
8 a.m. Oct. 7, 2016: The hurricane's center came within 35 miles of land but did not make landfall. Winds have gusted as high as 107 mph and waves have been reported as high as 24 feet. Storm surge rose to 4 feet at one station but has been lower at others.
6 a.m. Oct. 7, 2016: As the hurricane makes its closest pass, I am impressed that this storm is in a place no other storm has been in recorded history. As I said last night, there is a big hole where Category 3-5 ("major") hurricanes in this area of the coast and Matthew is about to enter it. Hurricane Matthew could loop around and hit the Bahamas and Florida again next week -- but as a shadow of its former self.
And now, a word about the hype and hyperbole for this story. First things first. This storm was a monster in the Caribbean and killed over 500 people in Haiti, a country that was ill-equipped to handle the storm. But now we're talking about the U.S.
Here's my opinion: I understand the media (and even meteorologists') frustration that people will die in this storm. We want to exaggerate the risk or promote a worst-case scenario so that people won't put themselves in danger, but declarations such as Shep Smith and the NWS made, and even Brian Norcross, should be reserved for Category 5 hurricanes that are hitting the coast with the NE quadrant, the most dangerous part of the storm (as opposed to this angle). That's where you'll see damage like Andrew or Katrina. The problem is now that we've made those declarations, if we don't see that extreme damage, people are going to say we're crying wolf next time.
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I know why Shep did it. He's a Louisiana guy and he's seen what a big Gulf storm can do. He's practically got PTSD from that. But what he doesn't know is that this is a different kind of storm, in a different place, coming from a different angle, and will have different effects.
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As to Matt Drudge... this whole things is fishy. Yes, I realize @Drudge is a verified Twitter account, but why would he not tweet for five years then suddenly start yesterday, especially when there is already a Twitter account @drudgereport that tweets his headlines (which, by the way, he archives on his website and the verbiage from those tweets can't be found there). Is it possible someone hacked his Twitter account?
For the sake of thousands of people arguing on the Internet, let's assume he did say those things. He needs to trust the scientists. I understand where he's coming from -- it seems like Global Warming proponents have said that the Earth warming would make storms worse, but there's little evidence of that. But if NOAA were going to fake recon readings for global warming, they would have done it sooner than 2016 (like, for example, after the record 2005 hurricane season and not at the near end of the 4,000-day major hurricane landfall drought).
That said, I do believe there is a disconnect between the flight-level readings and what's happening at the surface. I've blogged about that before. Why don't we see sustained winds as high as the category ranking? Usually, it's because there isn't enough instrumentation where the storm makes landfall. In this case, Matthew ran over a couple of buoys and the Space Coast is the best-case scenario for measuring a hurricane, so what we see should match the category. It still doesn't. Matthew is currently ranked a Category 3 with sustained winds of 105 knots (121 mph) and we haven't seen sustained winds over 100 mph (to my knowledge), only gusts.
I know we've been using recon more and more during the past few years -- Drudge was right about one thing: Matthew was a sloppy-looking storm. I said this myself. I can't remember another Cat 4-5 storm that never showed a clear eye. I can't help but wonder if we would have rated it such a high category without the recon? As we get more and more data from the storms, we may be redefining what a Category 4 "looks like."
Storm surge is another thing that's extremely hard to forecast. Because it varies based on astronomical tides, the shape of the coast, the depth of the dropoff from the coast. People get it confused with tides. People get it confused with waves. Thus far in Matthew, the maximum storm surge (as reported here) was about four feet, far below projections that ranged from 6 to 12 feet. Storm surge requires a "fetch" -- a long ocean area for winds to blow over and pile up and force the surge in. The angle of Hurricane Matthew's approach was not favorable for a big storm surge. Landfall not happening helped too. The surge may end up being bigger to the north, where the surge piles up around the craw of Georgia.
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