Steve wrote:I see you're back for another year of fun and games.
Hugs and kisses, Steve.
And this has exactly what to do with the setup for possible SE Gulf development toward this weekend?
The point is the perception of some sort of mystical abilities to forecast tropical development by JB; they don't exist. It's remarkable in all fields how difficult it is to convey to people that making LOTS of forecasts and having a few hits is not an accomplishment; there are always true believers that will carry forward the cherished memory of the hits and the misses are forgotten.
It's physically impossible for anything to develop without JB having mentioned it before it forms. As indicated last year (I don't know if I posted the full list on here, might have just been on Wright-Weather) JB spent the entirety of June and July saying "watch the Gulf" or "there could be tropical trouble due to a trough splitting in the W Carib" etc. etc. every two days.
But it's not demonstrating an actual skill.
And the problem with JB is now due to the subscription, the price increases for the subscription, and now the general hatred of and contempt for Accuweather that is snowballing because of the Senate bill, nobody is actually reading his entire discussions other than an ever-shrinking core of died-in-the-wool fanboys. I mean, I subscribed for the summer last year for the entertainment value but there's no way Joel Myers is getting a penny from me this year.
Please pardon me if I missed the thread where you made this or any other call in this history of your bashing other posters and weather outlets for their mistakes.
Oh please; this is the asinine argument you hear on sports talk radio, that absolutely nobody can comment on a sport or a player at all without having played that sport. Can a general or congressman be criticized by anyone that hasn't been a general or congressman?
I openly admit to not making forecasts; I also thus don't run around bragging about forecasts I didn't make. I'm really not interested in doing the sort of vague unverifiable forecasting (oops, it magically becomes "speculation" or "giving possibilities" when it doesn't verify) that Bastardi does; but I'm also not that interested in running yet another "I'm pretending to be NHC and putting out my own advisory!" website either.
I have forecasted in a formal way for some contests a few years back; found that most people didn't have the discipline to keep up with it so it ended being just me vs. one other person by the end each year. I keep meaning to revive it with a sophisticated website and easier entry of forecasts but never have really had the time.
I'm excellent at track but really had trouble (much more than NHC) at intensity.
But I do recall you harping on one of Accuweather's tracks before you more or less vanished for the season.
It was a graphic and text where Accuweather committed deliberate deception regarding their own track vs. NHC's track on Ivan.
And you went on and on about it. I also recall the slightest hint you put out was worse than what you criticized them for.
It wasn't that it was a bad forecast, it was that they lied in order to bash NHC. I didn't have to be doing my own forecasts to note that and certainly it doesn't require that I be doing my own forecasts to comment on it.
Now a couple years ago I was regarded as some sort of lone kook with a vendetta against AccuWeather saying stuff like that; but look around all the weather boards; the various deceptive press releases regarding the Senate Bill, the whole issue of witholding recon data (with that one, as is often the case regarding AccuWeather or Bastardi, it's quite difficult to tell if they were deliberately lying, or merely grossly incompetent) have caused a lot of pretty level headed people, lots of actual meteorologists, to basically start saying the same things I've been saying for years.
Others lap you up like you're some kind of guru because they're afraid to expose you for what you are or afraid you'll flame them.
Anyone that considers me a guru needs their head examined

. I'm definitely not. There's no one individual person I regard as a guru regarding matters of science and nobody else should either, though for whatever emotional reason people seem to want to single someone out to "follow."
One weird thing I've noticed is that the fact I don't forecast somehow causes people to think I have some sort of secret super-accurate forecast I keep to myself, and thus get pestered for it in chat. The less I say the smarter I'm perceived to be. Very odd. Something I've been meaning to try to apply in real life however

(Exhibit A: "So true, I remember you posting something about that last season.
You call that lapping me up? Geez.......try looking at some of the posts about Derek...now THAT'S obsequious worship as some sort of guru. He was simply noting and remebering the fully detailed study of Bastardi's forecasts of tropical cyclogenesis last year which I mentioned in my post.
The day you actually come out and make a prediction, forecast track or ANYTHING that affords you the right to criticize anyone else, then I'll never respond negatively to another bogus criticism you have to offer.
You're under the very mistaken impression that I somehow yearn for the day where you no longer respond negatively to me, and dream of a time where I no longer live in terror of Steve's incisive criticism.
I really don't care if you respond negatively to me

I need my entertainment.
And again, you can't possibly expect anyone who knows any better to miss you having "called" anything when you haven't in 2 seasons. You're great at trashing other people to make yourself look good, but not so great when you add up the fact that at least something is better than nothing.
OK, I'll start a thread here every two days from now through October titled "Watch the tropics for tropical mischief because of a trough splitting in front of a wave in (insert wherever tropical development is climatologically most likely that week)!" Then can I pretty please be allowed to criticize Bastardi by the Steve Pompous Morality Committee?
I've read two posts by you this year - one bashing Derek Ortt, one bashing Joe Bastardi, neither of which was a particularly good flame much less a reasonable criticism.
Bashing? Which Ortt post are you referring to? Wracking my brain and all I can remember is a reference to his unaccountable love for the Canadian which is mysterious because the objective verification numbers don't back him up, buried within a post.
Edit: Ah, now I remember the whole "Should NHC remove discussions from public view" thread. Heck, I wasn't the only person going after Derek on that thread......he got all excited over the NHC site redesign, thinking it implied they were removing public discussions, which was a silly observation at the time, and of course turned out to be wrong. He talks about it so much I can only draw the conclusion he's fantasizing about people doing the whole "Oooh, Derek, master of all secret inside weather information, pretty please drop me some hints of what the secret NHC discussion says!" shtick, or causing more people to have to rely on NorthWestSouthEast Hemispheric Tropical Center discussions. Color me guilty of not being quite the rabid Dortt fan many on the board are, for a variety of reasons; however he does share my intense dislike of all things AccuWeather, which is great.
And you're referring to me (accurately) noting the 29 failed JB forecasts of tropical development in June/July 2004 as "Bashing?"
Many reasons I'm not posting much these days, 1) being busy
2) Being strangely not as interested in the tropics as I have been for the last 10 years; really been spending free time reading up on seismology, volcanology, etc...I suspect I finally will get into it more in August but I'm not as rabid as I was, say, back in 1998 or so. People and their interests change though.
3) Is the general desire to turn S2K in to a warm-n-fuzzy hug fest where everyone tells everyone else how wunnferul they are. Profoundly boring to me. But it's reached the point where the slightest disagreement sends the Care Bear Police into a frenetic tizzy. (Actually this seems to be a problem with society at large as well). Pretty sad if boring posts such as mine you mention are considered "bashing" by anybody. Though I'm sure you (and for all I know, the mods, but they let your lovenote to me through so I guess I'm fair game to be "bashed") will have an apocalyptic fit over my Accuweather/JB comments above; noting they have a problem with lying and incompetence isn't "bashing" it's merely an accurate observation.