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What I don’t understand is, some appear to be angry with people who are correctly noting that this hurricane has not been nearly as bad as was being predicted as recently as yesterday.

Rather than being relieved and grateful as most normal human beings would be, to have avoided being in harm’s way with relatively minimal damage as hurricanes go, it seems that some overly weather-involved people have a need for this to continue to be a horrible, historic storm, despite increasing evidence to the contrary.

I’ve spent some time on the boards at Weather Underground, etc. and have noticed this phenomenon with snow storms in particular, over-reporting threats, reporting excessive snow accumulations, jumping on the wildest, outlier in the models. I guess they got some sort of thrill out of it, but I can’t say I really understand their motivation.

I understand the motivation, however, of the news media. Hyping the storm increases their viewership.

Yeah, we have both doomcasters and downcasters. I just try to present the information and forecasts coming out. Even Joe Bastardi, who has done a bang-up job forecasting the last three winters, was buying into the Euro track that had the eye tracking just inland - after all, the Euro pegged Sandy a long ways out. I posted his mea culpa earlier on this thread.

Hurricanes are notoriously finicky systems. Ike wobbled and spared Galveston while obliterating the Bolivar Pensisula. That wobble probably saved thousands of lives overall, but that is little consolation to those killed on Bolivar. Andrew wobbled and spared Miami while destroying Homestead. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but only a misguided egomaniac tries to claim some kind of special sauce wisdom because they guessed one storm right.

I really think we have to look at the response to the NHC saying Sandy was no longer a hurricane at landfall to understand their tendency now to present more worst-case scenarios. Anyone can make a guess on a website and gloat when that guess ends up mirroring what actually happens - and just clam up if they are wrong. But the NHC gets it in the pants when they don't provide a proper assessment of top-side risks - and then they get a wedgie when worst-case ends up not happening due to sheer luck such as an eyewall replacement and a wobble right before potential landfall.