Dr. Gray becomes the NHC’s new chief (joke)

[RL3AO]

By the way, I heard that Jim Cantore was selected as the NHC Director...

Kidding (I think)...

Nah. They would need the director at the NHC, not on the coast waiting for a storm.

[HURAKAN]

I know the post here was only in jest, but, it was well-written, and, with a link to boot, so, that really was the factor that made me believe it was true - perhaps it was a joke that was too well-made not to look like one...

Thank you for saying that it was well-written. Once again, my apologies to anyone that took it too hard. But the joke served its purpose, to get people by surprise. If I had posted on April 1, then people would have been able to almost immediately attribute it to April Fools.

This year I will try to make it more suddle. But I felt adecuate to put together "The NHC is looking for a new director" + "Dr. Gray retires from his hurricane predictions."

[Cyclenall]

I'm not sure if there is a thread on it--probably removed from the public view, but I do remember being in the chatroom when that happened. I was posting recon data and someone mentioned that a new vortex message was on the message board. Basically, a disgruntled poster and made a fake VDM and posted it on Storm2k. One of the key factors in the VDM was a significant drop in pressure. TWC picked it up within minutes and was reporting it on-air.

Sadly, if one looked at the VDM, they could easily tell it was bogus. The disgruntled poster failed to change the position and date/time group.

I think the even bigger story is the fact that The Weather Channel took information from here and not from an official source. I find that mind-boggling. I think someone should have pointed that out across the country? What TC was it?

[Frank2]

Nah. They would need the director at the NHC, not on the coast waiting for a storm.

I agree - as Bill Cosby told TWC during their 20th Anniversary special - "There's Jim Cantore, out there wearing the blue thing" (per the TWC jacket)...

[senorpepr]

Wow. Do you remember what storm it was?

If memory serves me correctly, it was Hurricane Ivan as it was deepening in the Caribbean Sea.

[senorpepr]

I think the even bigger story is the fact that The Weather Channel took information from here and not from an official source. I find that mind-boggling. I think someone should have pointed that out across the country? What TC was it?

While we don't know exactly what happened behind the scenes at TWC that day--maybe it was an intern that came across the fake VDM and passed it onto the OCM--but in the business of media, the first to report the hot news is king. You sort of get the same thing here in regards to recon. With the observations that the recon crews report in this era (re: HDOBs), the average Joe can monitor where the plane is at. I remember when I was first decoding observations and posting maps, it was neat to be able to know that recon was headed into the eye--we knew some high winds and a VDM would soon to come. I also know that many of us recon followers mashed the refresh key on our site of choice for data. Once that VDM would come across the screen, it was a mad rush to post it to show the world. TWC is no different. The unfortunately part, in this case, was the data was false. (Thank our buddy, greatone)

Matter of fact, something else that crosses my mind... when unintentional false data is dangerous. I remember a storm last year were someone posted, I believe, a sub-900mb pressure reading. While there was no intention to spread misinformation, many people took this reading as true and passed it around. Chatrooms, other message boards, etc, were flooded with hot news that this storm was now sub-900mb. What happened? Someone made a simple error in reading a dropsonde message. In fact, the surface pressure was in the 920s or so--we did not have a deepening storm.