AJC3 wrote:al78 wrote:Looking at the latest discussion/advisories from NHC, can someone explain why Haiti is under a hurricane watch whilst Jamaica is only under a tropical storm watch, even though the forecast track has the storm almost landfalling on the eastern tip of Jamaica as a hurricane and is some distance from Haiti through the next five days? I'd have thought the watches would have been the other way around with that forecast track.
That's entirely up to the government of the impacted country. If I had to make an educated guess, Haiti is erring on the side of extreme caution. The forecast track (extreme slowdown in forward speed), intensity and "right sided" wind radii, altogether really only justified a TS watch for them (for now) at the time it was issued . It's hard to see any land (or even marine) area getting Hurricane force winds at T+48 hours from 03Z.
I always thought the NHC made recommendations that countries implemented based on their advice. Formally it is up to the country but do they implement such warnings or watches without the NHC filling them in on it?
