How in the world can all the forecasters be so wrong? Supposedly a catastrophic storm! Millions evacuated! If this thing fizzles, who in their right mind would ever listen to the "hurricane" experts again? I guess better safe than sorry, but what a mess.
Puh-leeze.
Floyd "fizzled" to a Cat 2 at landfall.
Still caused 4.6 billion in damage and killed 56 people.
Rita will still cause major storm surge along the coast and the inland flooding could well be worse than what we saw with Floyd.
And if Rita had remained a strong Cat 4, it would have killed just about anyone remaining along the coast.
I think the NHC has been saying for a few days that Rita may be downgraded to a Category 3 before landfall.
36hrs ago she was a CAT5 with 175MPH winds and no apparent shear headed for the Central Texas coast. She was Katrina part 2 in every sense of the word. She had pressure reading down near Gilbert range. Hurricanes aren't an exact science by any measure.
There were several folks on the earlier threads praying, and speculating that this thing would go up to LA and fizzle. Don't remember exactly who. You can bet yer sweet bippy they will re-appear if this hits LA at trop storm strenght or less!
"How in the world can all the forecasters be so wrong? Supposedly a catastrophic storm! Millions evacuated! If this thing fizzles, who in their right mind would ever listen to the "hurricane" experts again? I guess better safe than sorry, but what a mess."
This was just a test. Rove invented Rita to see if Bush's home state could evacuate better than Blanco's.
"How in the world can all the forecasters be so wrong? "
Beats me, but even we can see the radars.
Im sure they do too and will alter their forecast some at this rate of weakening.
I dont know it its temporary but it looks good to me.
Let's see, if the storm is catastrophic, as Katrina was, we want to know why all those idiots didn't listen and evacuate, and we also want to know why La. officials didn't call for an earlier evacuation.
If on the other hand Katrina had fallen apart, people would have been making fun of Nagin and others for panicking.
Which is it?
You can do better? Storms change that's why they call it "fore"casting. Rita spun up faster and worse than Katrina. She had favorable shear and water temps up until yesterday mid day. She had all the markings of another catastrophic hurricane.
Also, even if she hits as only a Category 2 she's pushing a Category 5 induced storm surge. There's no where for the water to go but inland. The threat from hurricanes has always been from storm surge and inland flooding. Floyd was a 2 (corect me if I"m wrong on that) when it hit North Carolina and dozens drowned due to severe flooding.
"Over-reaction" is something arm-chair quarterbacks spwe about when they are dissapointed about wind speeds and body counts.
"How in the world can all the forecasters be so wrong? Supposedly a catastrophic storm! Millions evacuated! If this thing fizzles, who in their right mind would ever listen to the "hurricane" experts again?"
I don't think it will fizzle, but is now down to a Cat 3. And I don't blame the forecasters so much. Predicting the future is not easy...not even with supercomputers. However, I do agree with the "who...would ever lister to...experts again?" I think that was the same problem before Katrina. Every storm is the "Storm of the Century", and things may be bad, but nothing like Katrina damage. Everyone was too complacent before Katrina and now everyone has swung the other way...maybe too far.
For crying out loud...half the country's been praying for this very thing and you're complaining?