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?
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’