Posted on 09/07/2019 8:26:24 AM PDT by RummyChick
This has to be the most inane "gate" in the history of "gates"! ... and there are myriad dumb "gates"!
They need to know who there bosses are and either get aboard or quit. Else, be fired. There is no excuse this far into the administration to have local government offices running amok. Wasn’t there direction early on about social media posts?
Okay, MARY.
Then they should quit and open up the job for a MAGA hat wearing patriot.
JoMa
Someone at the White House ridiculously drew the additional circle in a fit of irresponsibility, probably for political reasons and Trump using what was handed to him. And no, I don't think Trump is so brilliant that he innately knows the direction of hurricanes.
Actually it was settled science that Florida would already be underwater by now so there would be nothing left for a hurricane to hit!
If we’re being intellectually honest, then it’s time to face the uncertainty elephant in the room.
The models were totally wrong about Dorian in a number of ways... including the earlier ones that had it strike Alabama. The course estimates didn’t match reality at all until well past PR. The only model that got intensity right was dismissed as erroneous.
How is it that models that are sacrosanct on Sept 1 get a free pass for being totally wrong on Aug 30 and 29 and 28 and beyond? Where does that certainty level kick in, precisely, and why? This is the key question.
If you are a citizen of Alabama - not a decision maker in the federal bureaucracy - you haven’t done storm prep since Irma, most likely, so it makes sense with the large amount of tropical cyclones lined up and active. Nobody sent them the magic signal that the incorrect art of forecasting that showed them in the risk zone two days earlier suddenly became perfectly reliable against the storm when it said they no longer were at risk. Even though the media were relentlessly telling them that the forecast was particularly uncertain.
I struggle to even conceive a claim of harm to be derived from someone in Alabama responding to Trump’s message by preparing for a storm. Downside risks for a citizen failing to prepare are things like death and property destruction. For a citizen preparing the downside risks are spending a little more money now on supplies that will be useful at some point in the future anyway.
As far as the bosses in the bureaucracy are concerned, their reaction should be of no surprise at all. How would you feel if your subordinate set about to publicly correct the CEO and did not even clear it with you? This is a courtesy and respect issue within that bureaucracy. Line level workers shouldn’t be making political decisions on their own, it’s not team behavior at all.
There’s one more question raised by the level of certainty implied, which is why wasn’t Grand Bahama Island evacuated. Did the models predict it would sit on top of them for 40 hours with 185mph winds... and nobody staged an evacuation? Or is nobody responsible for the models in this case, where this level of certainty would essentially mean someone left all those people to die on purpose.
It's not so much whether Alabama will be hit, it's whether it's safe to stage FEMA emergency teams in Alabama to be ready to respond once the storm passes. It's about making a decision to execute staging plans well before the storm arrives, and well before usual roads are turned into one-way evacuation routes.
It's about making these decisions very early while the data is still highly uncertain. In my mind, it's not about "warning" Alabama about being hit, it's about assessing the risks to Alabama as a FEMA staging area.
-PJ
That is an EASY question to answer. The models for Dorian were bad BEFORE the G-IV flights started making the flights and dropping dropsondes into the atmosphere around Dorian on the 29th. Adding additional data points to the models helps with models resolution and it helped the models come up with a better solution. This is from the discussion at 5PM on the 29th:
"The National Weather Service has begun 6-hourly upper-air soundings across portions of the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States. Six-hourly balloons are also being launched in Bermuda and Nassau in the Bahamas. A NOAA G-IV synoptic surveillance mission is ongoing, and the data from this flight will be assimilated into the 0000 UTC model cycle."
That 00Z model cycle would be for the models on the 30th. And if you will go back and LOOK at the forecasts - it was this additional data from the G-IV flights that helped that model data come to a BETTER solution.
THAT'S why you can trust those later models better than the earlier ones. The earlier models were steering the storm with a ridge based on largly unknown intensity. Once the G-IV missions started, it made MANY samples of the atmosphere from the surface to 50K feet and took that data and put it into the global models - ALL around the system. The global models THEN realized the ridge to the north of Dorian wasn't as strong as they had previously thought it was and thus recurved the storm.
See - this is a little more complicated than you think it is...and there are ACTUAL answers going on behind the scenes. Perhaps people who make forecasts know what they are doing. Just because you can pull some maps doesn't mean you know what you are looking at or even how the data is being produced. If you did - you would have actually known the answer to that question. Stop before you get further behind.
lol ........
No. Having worked for FEMA and DHS and actually being FEMA 100, 200, 700, 800, being DSCA level 1 and 2 certified and having gone through the Incident Command Certification Program, I can say for a CERTAINTY - NO. Look carefully at the Tweet.
I can tell you EXACTLY what happened. The Alabama state EOC gave the all-clear on Saturday. Everyone is sitting at home eating breakfast or getting ready for church on Sunday. All of the sudden - Trump tweets what he tweets...and then BAM - all hell breaks loose and phones start ringing off the wall: "HAS THE TRACK CHANGED? WHAT'S GOING ON!!!!????"
That is EXACTLY what happened. I've seen it happen. False info get's put out there and the "boss" freaks out. I've been on the receiving end of that and I've had to put out those fires. In order to put out that fire, the NWS Birmingham tweeted out a fire extinguisher.
And the FEMA staging area wouldn't be in Alabama - it would have been in Georgia. That's where FEMA IV HQ is located and where their DCO is located as well. It's not Alabama.
Workers do policy? “Why are we bypassed?” Duh, because not qualified ?
C2Cam did a mass meditation for a right turn. Maybe that did it. :-D
Behind? I am well ahead here. I never ask a question to which I do not care to know the true and real answer, and having it puts me in plus territory.
How large is the universe of people who are aware of the certainty level change impact of the dropsondes? I was aware of these devices and their operations, but the impact on modeling certainty was completely left out.
I’m still bugged by the question of if we were that certain about it before it sat on Grand Bahama, why was anyone left there?
So - what everyone SHOULD have said on Sunday was "Hey - Sorry 'Bama - the President was given bad intel this morning - (not naming any names) Alabama is in the clear."
Because very simply - that is the truth behind the Sunday tweet. The Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Schultz briefed Trump on it. And why thy DHS weather bubba wasn't doing it I do not know - I don't know the new guy but was personal friends with the previous guy who was the president's weather guy. He retired two years ago. It was Schutz who made the error - but 4-star generals don't usually get thrown under the bus - local weather forecasters at a local weather office? Yeah - you can throw them under the bus and it won't matter as much.
Logistics. Pure and simple logistics. And BTW - when you see the final death report - DO NOT believe it.
All that damage that looks like just a bunch of rubble bunched together is actually a Haitian refugee shantytown - and non of them were evacuated. :-(
And it was also a factor that the biggest error in our forecasting ability still remains intensity forecasting. The NHC was forecasting a cat 3 MOVING over the Bahamas - something they could handle. The stall happened - and nobody foresaw a stalled Cat 5. As a met, I cannot imagine. I saw it coming about a day ahead of time and told the wife...but I was even surprised at the duration and max winds. Other storms have done this very thing - but never over land. A storm did this back in the 60’s - but it was about 100 miles north of where Dorian did it and it too was a cat 5’
They must all be dead... that island had a population of 51,000! How many yet live?
OK so I have to know, what are the actual uncertainty levels of the forecasts with and without the dropsondes? Are we talking like 50% and 5% or what?
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