The Street Cred of Hurricane Forecasting

Alright, here we go again...Dr. William Gray of the University of Colorado has done it once more. He and his esteemed team at the esteemed university located in the country's middle waist have once again published their annual forecast for the year's hurricane season. How many named storms, how many hurricanes, how many major storms...you know. This event always entertains me and the carpenters I work with daily. This prediction from the people who can't really predict with any certainty, the path of one of these storms when its spinning itself up right off our coast.

Show us your "cone of probability". Tell us where you think the "eye will come ashore" one more time as it rolls over our coast.

Does the good doctor really expect us to base our annual, long range planning on these storm forecasts? What should we be doing with this impossibly unreliable information? Come on, one of you heavyweight, meteorologist, atmospheric sciences expert readers please weigh in here, help us. I welcome your comments. What good is this type of forecasting? Maybe the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction and its major insurance corporation supporters would like us to have this hurricane talk ringing in our ears as much as possible so we'll find value in the thousands we pay in each year on our flood and windstorm policies.

With the attention this gets from the media each year, these are our suggestions as ways to improve/capitalize on this annual pronouncement. Let's make it more of a media-sensational event, more festive.

First, we think Dr. Gray should stand before a microphone reading from a scroll or some similar dignified manuscript wearing a spandex suit emblazoned with his sponsors' name across his chest, replete with cap and maybe a cape (see a professional cyclist's racing kit)as he makes his grand, yearly pronouncement. You know, each year the university could sell the sponsorship of this momentous event kinda like naming rights for an arena or stadium. It all demands a fitting circus atmosphere. Attendants could be seen dressed in foul weather oilskins and Gumby-like survival suits in the background on stage.

To be completely honest, I believe forecasts like this are just one of the things that help mislead the uninformed inhabitants on the coast into believing someone really does have the ability through technology or whatever, to predict these storms. This is just one of many things that have happened in the past 20 years which give some a false sense of security in their newer structurally improved homes. This came as a result of Hurricane Hugo hitting the Charleston, South Carolina area with its whopping 21'+ storm surge and Andrew following in southern Florida in the early '90's with its record dollar value of damage. And then there was Katrina..."Brownie you're doin' a helluva job."

Some won't evacuate now because they're sure their home can withstand the carnage. Some of the new structural building code requirements born in the wake of these storms did raise the price of all homes somewhat, but had particular effect on the price of entry level homes in these high wind zone regions mostly east of Interstate Ninety-five. I believe the inverse effect is that some are left behind in newly substandard construction, not being able to afford one of these new home fortresses.

The science Dr. Gray is attempting to advance holds great potential to save lives and infrastructure some time in the future there is no doubt. But the forecasting track record in general where these storms are concerned tells us maybe he should cool out until near-term forecasting has more accuracy. However, he may as well make a visual circus of it for now if he must persist. Let's have some tabloid fun!

In the meantime, we'd like the University of Colorado and the rest of the U.S. to take a look at our lunchtime-developed, Outer Banks of North Carolina snow forecast for the nation's mid-section for next winter...