August 30, 2004
Weather Gods
I'm watching the latest projected path for Hurricane Frances, and I'm thinking what I usually think about things in general that people I don't know tell me:
Bullshit.
That is not the projected path the meteorologists at NOAA, the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, the Weather Channel, and NASA have tucked away in their briefcases. Their private projections show Carolinas, or Virginia, I'm sure.
But they can't say that. That would be irresponsible, like the corpulent mayor in Amity who wouldn't close the beach.
No, these folks are projecting the current path because they are trying to get folks in Florida to listen up and pay attention. Especially since those thimbleheads in Punta Gorda, while under a hurricane warning, decided Charley would hit Tampa, only 70 miles away. And so, did nothing, and took a beating.
Don't get me wrong: I don't think what these people is doing is wrong, but it ain't Meteorology. It's Civil Defense. You can mobilize Florida and south Georgia, and evacuate a few million people, and still have time to evacuate more people in the Carolinas over the next few days, once the storm turns.
It's sensible, if a shameful wasteful of resources.
I have no problem with this modus operandi, I just wish they didn't have to pretend it's their best professional estimate. I feel bad for these folks, having to bite their tongues, and privately e-mailing their private forecasts to each other for mutual appreciation.
Of course, the unspoken looms large. Which is that I'm full of shit, the 10% probability occurs, and that thing comes and slams me in the ass.
Hubris has brought low greater than I, after all.