[SamAdams76]

I heard Bastardi on Hannity as well on Friday. He basically said that the storm would be so catastrophic that it would dominate the news cycle this coming week and unfortunately push the RNC off the front pages. He said that this storm would likely be the news event of the year like Katrina was a few years back.

I like Bastardi (and he's no liberal) as he's not afraid to go out on a limb on his forecasting. Fortunately, he is sometimes spectacularly wrong and I'm hoping this is one of those times.

BTW, speaking of Bastardi, I used to subscribe to his blog on AccuWeather for $5 a month. Now he is over at WeatherBell and charging $160 a year. That seems to be a bit steep to me just to get a blog. Does anybody get his WeatherBell blog and if so, is it worth it?

[sheikdetailfeather]

I do not subscribe to his blog but he is on Twitter and Facebook.

[fatima]

Joe has a twitter account I have been watching all day.

[null and void]

it would dominate the news cycle this coming week and unfortunately push the RNC off the front pages.

It won't take a Cat-5 to drive the RNC convention off the front pages.

A Cat-up-a-tree would suffice.

[duckman]

“Fortunately, he is sometimes spectacularly wrong...”

He is an alarmist and usually gives the worst possible case. I don’t listen to him here on the Outer Banks of NC. I usually check with the www.skeetobiteweather.com web site. They are usually accurate with HC tracking.

[ExNewsExSpook]

I agree; $160 is too much to pay for a weather blog. However, a lot of corporations pay big bucks for the private forecasts offered by Bastardi and his firm, WeatherBell. True, they sometimes go out on a limb, but you don’t keep Fortune 500 clients without a strong track record. From what I hear, WeatherBell has a rather impressive customer list, and Bastardi took some big accounts with him when he left Accu-Weather.

If you want a good barometer of where the storm is going (and how bad it’s going to be), talk to someone in logistics who works for Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart. Those companies have a long track record of getting needed items to their stores in the impact zone before and immediately after the storm. If you’re on/near the Gulf Coast, and see a lot of trucks from those stores in your area, or staging within 100 miles of the coast, you can expect the worst from Isaac.

After Katrina, some academics did a study of the government response to the storm versus the Wal-Mart response. Naturally, the company was far more efficient at anticipating where the need would be the greatest, and getting essential items to their stores in those areas.