wxman57 wrote:HURAKAN wrote:When will RECON investigate TD 8?
A better question would be SHOULD recon investigate TD 8 tomorrow afternoon? It's obvious that this system is not going to threaten any U.S. interests, so what benefit to the U.S. would a recon mission provide? Will Bermuda pay for recon to fly out tomorrow? Why should U.S. tax dollars go to a recon mission? If the storm continues heading for the U.K., as some storms as tropical as TD 8 is now have, should the U.S. continue flying recon into the storm, perhaps based out of Bermuda or the U.K.?
Even putting aside the argument that TD 8 is clearly no threat to the U.S., and a recon mission would not benefit the U.S., would it even help Bermuda? Bermuda is already under a TS warning, expecting TS force winds within 24 hours. By the time the recon plane got there, the center would not be very far southwest of Bermuda, and the island could already be in tropical storm-force wind. So could a recon mission tomorrow afternoon provide any essential information for making a good weather forecast for Bermuda? In any case, the time for the recon mission was today (if at all), not after TS force winds may already be hitting Bermuda.
Reconnaissance flights are routinely flown for the benefit of other WMO Region IV nations. Under the WMO, the NHC is a Regional Specialized Meteorological Center, with obligations to all WMO RA-IV nations, not just to U.S. citizens.
In your second paragraph, it sounds like you believe that once the warning goes up, reconnaissance data are no longer necessary. This argument would seem to apply to U.S. warnings as well. In fact, why not just stop issuing advisories once the warnings go up?
I think there are benefits to continued data collection. Wouldn't it be useful, even with just hours to spare, to know that the cyclone had abruptly strengthened, or weakened? I'm sure that certain actions would be taken on the island in either event. Or what if the system moves more slowly than forecast (after all, the UKMET and NOGAPS were slower to the east than the NHC forecast). Perhaps by 18Z tomorrow the system is still a considerable distance away.
