what did joe bastardi say on msnbc today?
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Derek Ortt
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Derek Ortt wrote:probably a bunch of blah, blah, blah. Doubt it's of a higher quality than his Gilbert forecast that got some people killed in 88 with his Galveston forecast. Some people ended up taking shelter in Mexico, where the storm hit
I remember a special on Hurricane Gilbert and the forecast tracks and clearly remember how badly Accuweather's forecast of a sharp northward turn towards Galveston. As I recall, the forecast track error was about 500 miles, if not more.
The only Accuweather track forecast that I remember that was right, involved Floyd and it's sharp northward, and northeast turn. (But then again, it seems to be the theme with the Accuweather forecasts with any storm involving a recurvature point).
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Put it this way Derek Ott, rest assured (as noted in that other thread) that his seasonal forecast far outshines anything federal agencies, your university, or any other entity of experts is doing. It's all about kahonies. I'm not rehashing the argument from the other thread. But let's just say a big THANK GOD for the private sector. He puts himself and his reputation on the line on June 8th. I guarantee it will be a lot less 'blah blah blah' than some forecast calling for 11-15 storms, some (!) of them turning into hurricanes, whatever. Re-read that thread if you want to, but that's roughly the same thing that 25 posters on this site said.
So unless you've got something better, that professional criticism is weak. Pointing out Gilbert in 1988 as a flaw? Look at EVERY STORM the NHC handles as I'm sure you do. Their ideas are more often out to lunch. And that's not all the time, but 6-10 times, a storm that one day is forecast to hit Texas, the next day is going into Alabama, then the next day is hitting Key West, then finally forecast out to sea. Deny it if you will. But all enthusiasts see it every year. So I'm not going to argue with anyone about it except to say that if you buy into what NOAA's seasonal forecasts are all about, good for you.
Steve
So unless you've got something better, that professional criticism is weak. Pointing out Gilbert in 1988 as a flaw? Look at EVERY STORM the NHC handles as I'm sure you do. Their ideas are more often out to lunch. And that's not all the time, but 6-10 times, a storm that one day is forecast to hit Texas, the next day is going into Alabama, then the next day is hitting Key West, then finally forecast out to sea. Deny it if you will. But all enthusiasts see it every year. So I'm not going to argue with anyone about it except to say that if you buy into what NOAA's seasonal forecasts are all about, good for you.
Steve
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rainstorm
Not in the segment I watched. He said his forecast was being worked on but really wanted to show some types of information that he looks at when coming up with his analogs - NAO, SOI, spring temps & precip, water profiles, multi-decadanal (sp?) cycles et al. It was okay, nothing great. He said it would be a tease. The only thing hint he did give, and it was on his site, was for a 30% more than average intensity of landfalls as scored by his 1-64 intensity system. But that's not being released until a week from tomorrow.
Steve
Steve
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Derek Ortt
I kind of know how the private sector works. I have done some independent consulting for a few people last season. Needless to say, the message is delivered a little differently than it is on NWHHC as my hands are somewhat tied on NWHHC. A good trait for consulting is that one must know his/her limitations. If I am not sure, that is what I say. I do not make up BS just to give a forecast.
Also, regarding the changing of forecasts based upon new data, that is nothing but good solid science. Bad science is looking at new data, but then not using it just to defend an earlier thought
Also, regarding the changing of forecasts based upon new data, that is nothing but good solid science. Bad science is looking at new data, but then not using it just to defend an earlier thought
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Joe B
I caught the first one. With the few minutes he was allotted, he basically said it would be a above average season and more potential land strikes. I like Joe, I think he does a pretty good job. Plus he makes the science of meteorology interesting... not a bad role model if you ask me. Is he perfect, far from it.
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>>Also, regarding the changing of forecasts based upon new data, that is nothing but good solid science. Bad science is looking at new data, but then not using it just to defend an earlier thought
I agree completely. That's what Dr. Gray does with his updates as he gets new data in and what the TPC does when they get new guidance and updated information on particular storms. But it gets to be apples to oranges. My big dispute is with the pre-season forecasts and their value to their respective consumers. I give Accuweather props for taking a chance with a new methodology that can be scored for effectiveness. It's a system that, if right, will show they looked at good information for the year. If it's bad, it will stick out like a sore thumb and hopefully encourage them and others to find out why and where they made their mistakes.
Steve
I agree completely. That's what Dr. Gray does with his updates as he gets new data in and what the TPC does when they get new guidance and updated information on particular storms. But it gets to be apples to oranges. My big dispute is with the pre-season forecasts and their value to their respective consumers. I give Accuweather props for taking a chance with a new methodology that can be scored for effectiveness. It's a system that, if right, will show they looked at good information for the year. If it's bad, it will stick out like a sore thumb and hopefully encourage them and others to find out why and where they made their mistakes.
Steve
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The Irony of AccuSux vs. NHC.....
Steve wrote: It's all about kahonies. I'm not rehashing the argument from the other thread. But let's just say a big THANK GOD for the private sector. He puts himself and his reputation on the line on June 8th. I guarantee it will be a lot less 'blah blah blah' than some forecast calling for 11-15 storms, some (!) of them turning into hurricanes, whatever.
Look at EVERY STORM the NHC handles as I'm sure you do. Their ideas are more often out to lunch. And that's not all the time, but 6-10 times, a storm that one day is forecast to hit Texas, the next day is going into Alabama, then the next day is hitting Key West, then finally forecast out to sea. Steve
Btw, it's "Cojones" (It's Spanish.)
Again I have to note the irony that you seem infatuated with the brave AccuSux and Bastardi doing more specific landfall forecasts then NOAA and then (effectively) BASH NOAA for giving specific hurricane track forecasts FOUR times a day. Make up your mind as to what you want.
NOAA does specific, precise, lat-long forecasts 4 times a day, for every system. It's easy to calculate their track error, and they have 4 opportunities a day (that's a lot) to have a track that seems really off (and boy, their bashers will remember that.)
AccuSux, in contrast, as best I can tell (I did look prior to the pay thing at times, and I just recently signed up for the 30 day free trial, I have no intention of paying them for anything) simply puts up a vague "wedge" graphic without any lat-long data that can be used for verification, and not much in the way of an intensity forecast. Oddly their graphics were NEVER time-stamped so I had no idea how many times the forecast was updated.
And it's perfectly valid to bring up the Galveston debacle, because there are so few actual specific AccuSux tropical forecasts to even deal with. That was one of them (NHC had Gilbert missing Galveston by hundreds of miles.)
Much less well known but similar was a Cenpac storm that AccuSux decided was going to hit Honolulu, and much panic was started by AccuSux media outlets there, when the CPHC had the storm missing well to the south. The storm, of course, missed well to the south.
And Bastardi doesn't do specific track forecasting; his track forecasting consists of a long, rambling, often semi-incoherent rant every day where he wanders through a sequence of possibilities such that after the storm is over and you go back and examine his "forecast" it's often unclear exactly what he was forecasting trackwise. Of course, he's quite good at picking and chosing whatever day he highlighted what actually ended up happening and mentioning it afterwards.
Most of his tropical "skill" seems to be incessant bragging when a storm actually forms that he mentioned a storm forming several days before the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook did.
BFD.
There's a difference between a 10,000 word essay where every day during the tropical season he mentions every conceivable cloud in the Atlantic that could eventually form a storm (thus it's not possible that he'll EVER miss a development) and a brief product like the TWO, intended only to discuss imminent tropical development.
This would be fine if Bastardi wasn't so prone to snide, backbiting comments about NOAA/NHC regarding forecasting (he's toned it down in recent years, often in response to being taken to task privately by NWS forecasters.) A lot of times it was sort of coded so that you had to be fairly perceptive to penetrate his writing style and see the digs and insults for what they were.
In this case it's pretty cowardly to be sitting around carping at NHC for putting themselves on a line with a SPECIFIC forecast every 6 hours that leaves them open to great embarassment, when you're not doing one yourself.
But I used to read Bastardi daily for the simple reason that when trying to chat in a tropical room it was impossible to do so without hordes of naive Bastardi worshippers coming in and parroting whatever he claimed in his column for that day, such that I had to read the column to have a conversation.
Of course, it was amusing when you'd routinely catch Bastardi in errors, such as not following the sequence of model lows correctly, etc.
In fact, I suspect I have just the last few days; on BBs and in chat I've seen multiple people mysteriously claim that "models" had the current 95E East Pac disturbance "crossing in to the Gulf."
I have not seen a single model run in the last 4 days where that occured. (If someone has I'd be curious to find out which one and the date of the run) Some of the models vaguely had the 95E feature (many seem to be losing it now) and some of the models in the 5+ day time frame also developed a SEPARATE vague Bay of Campeche low. On NONE of them did the one cross MX to become the other.
Then in chat tonight I found out that it was BASTARDI that claimed that "models" had the low crossing MX in some streaming video a few days ago (He apparently didn't mention this in his text essays, however.) A typical error as he often doesn't really CAREFULLY examine model forecast tropical lows; he just glanced at them and assumed that the EPAC thing crossed over and became the BOC thing (which is possible but very rare, and again, I cannot recall a single model where this happend in this situation.)
At some point you'll get over your infatuation with AccuSux; seems a lot of people have it when the discover an "other" source for forecasting than the NWS.
Just remember they're the JV team; they pay less than NWS and generally mets don't take jobs with AccuSux unless they couldn't get one with the NWS.
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>>Btw, it's "Cojones" (It's Spanish.)
Btw, it’s “sucks” (It’s English).
>>Again I have to note the irony that you seem infatuated with the brave AccuSux and Bastardi doing more specific landfall forecasts then NOAA and then (effectively) BASH NOAA for giving specific hurricane track forecasts FOUR times a day. Make up your mind as to what you want.
Oh yeah, since you want to play ‘language guru’, it’s technically “than” NOAA. Don’t jump in the middle of a legitimate argument and then tell me I’m doing something wrong. There was a prior thread where D.O. and I debated the merits of the NOAA’s seasonal forecast. He said he uses it and looks forward to it annually. I countered that range-based forecasts and probability schemes could be spun and graded to fit whatever the author then wanted to come back with after the season was complete. Fine. It was a disagreement between us over seasonal forecasts. Then Derek Ortt, who I assume is not you despite the similar aliases, brought in Gilbert’s fiasco. We don’t have an Accuweather outlet in New Orleans, so I’m not familiar with whatever they put out in the 1980’s. I started utilizing their tropical products in 1999 and 2000. And along with other official, professional and amateur services, I can get something out of their tropical products. Obviously some of you guys have issues with Joe Bastardi and whatever he said about Gilbert. We had a related situation in New Orleans. Former “guru” Nash Roberts noted about Betsy before it looped in the Atlantic stating, ‘we have nothing to worry about.’ Well it turned out that it hooked back around, came through South Florida and was the last direct hit of a Category 3 storm in our area. Though he’s retired, he remained a controversial figure in the city. Some people lived for what he said, others didn’t trust him. That comes with the profession.
I don’t have to make up my mind because I didn’t confuse the issue. I simply replied to what others said about Hurricane Gilbert. In New Orleans, our best met, Bob Breck, talked about the size of Gilbert and its likely continued forward momentum. But similarly, if someone is unable to view every tropical update on the TPC site, which is probably at least 80% of the population, then what’s the difference? If Hilda Oldlady gets her news from a TV station who has agreed to only give the official governmental forecasts, but only watches the news every night at 6pm, then she’s MORE OFTEN THAN NOT going to see something completely different with the official forecast on Wed. than she did on Tues. She could similarly be caught off guard. So make up your mind if you want to have a gentlemanly disagreement or if you’re pumping an agenda or just feel like sparring on this forum. I already said I wasn’t going to rehash the same argument, and I'm certainly not a troll looking to tick off the system administrators, many of whom I consider interenet tropical buddies.
>>NOAA does specific, precise, lat-long forecasts 4 times a day, for every system. It's easy to calculate their track error, and they have 4 opportunities a day (that's a lot) to have a track that seems really off (and boy, their bashers will remember that.)
You are correct. But the original argument wasn’t about their 4-times-a-day tracks, it was about post-season scoring of pre-season forecasts. But since you brought it up, there are also personalities that come into play at the TPC. Often they seem to be agenda driven. Some of the forecasters won’t even address issues with developing systems opting in favor of “Tropical Formation is not expected through x-day” when any amateur can see a deepening low pressure system. When there is a storm in my area, I use weighted averages to figure out what I think I’m going to do. Don’t assume for a minute that the NHC isn’t the first link in my “Weather Sites” subfolder in Favorites.
>>AccuSux, in contrast, as best I can tell (I did look prior to the pay thing at times, and I just recently signed up for the 30 day free trial, I have no intention of paying them for anything) simply puts up a vague "wedge" graphic without any lat-long data that can be used for verification, and not much in the way of an intensity forecast. Oddly their graphics were NEVER time-stamped so I had no idea how many times the forecast was updated.
Their broad-based coverage of tropical systems isn’t that great. They have some decent sat loops and all, but their stuff seems to be dated as compared to sats one can get directly from universities, GOES-8, etc. I catch Bastardi in the morning – column and tropical update – and that’s the extent of any influence he has on my daily tropical routine during the active part of the season. Sometimes I’ll check in the afternoon to see if he put out a PM update, but I don’t use their site – just like I don’t use TWC’s site – for what the TPC, NWS, local forecasters and emergency management personnel provide me.
>>And it's perfectly valid to bring up the Galveston debacle, because there are so few actual specific AccuSux tropical forecasts to even deal with. That was one of them (NHC had Gilbert missing Galveston by hundreds of miles.)
That’s fine if we’re debating the merits of Accuweather as an outlet. But the disagreement was over the NOAA’s and other seasonal forecasts.
>>Much less well known but similar was a Cenpac storm that AccuSux decided was going to hit Honolulu, and much panic was started by AccuSux media outlets there, when the CPHC had the storm missing well to the south. The storm, of course, missed well to the south.
I’m sure it won’t be the last time either. But what’s the point? Obviously you don’t like AccuWeather as you continue to note them as “AccuSux.” You could have just come out and said that. Do you think you are better than they are or something? Implying they suck would indicate that or at least a serious degree of contempt.
>>And Bastardi doesn't do specific track forecasting; his track forecasting consists of a long, rambling, often semi-incoherent rant every day where he wanders through a sequence of possibilities such that after the storm is over and you go back and examine his "forecast" it's often unclear exactly what he was forecasting trackwise. Of course, he's quite good at picking and chosing whatever day he highlighted what actually ended up happening and mentioning it afterwards.
Again, why accuse me of bringing this stuff into the argument? Did I say he did specific track forecasting? He usually tells you where he thinks landfall is going to be, and he did fine (though his timing was off) with Isidore and Lili last year. At least he got the state right several days out. And with Lili, that is better than what can be said for several other sources until 24 hours out from landfall.
>>Most of his tropical "skill" seems to be incessant bragging when a storm actually forms that he mentioned a storm forming several days before the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook did.
Once again, this is your beef. It’s not mine. Reference repeated notes on the 6/8 upcoming seasonal forecasts.
>>BFD.
Exactly. But I don’t know why you’re making it into such a BFD.
>>There's a difference between a 10,000 word essay where every day during the tropical season he mentions every conceivable cloud in the Atlantic that could eventually form a storm (thus it's not possible that he'll EVER miss a development) and a brief product like the TWO, intended only to discuss imminent tropical development.
Not the subject of the argument. If you didn’t find any value in the 10,000 word essays, I’m sure you wouldn’t waste your time or wouldn’t have signed up for the 30-day free trial.
>>This would be fine if Bastardi wasn't so prone to snide, backbiting comments about NOAA/NHC regarding forecasting (he's toned it down in recent years, often in response to being taken to task privately by NWS forecasters.) A lot of times it was sort of coded so that you had to be fairly perceptive to penetrate his writing style and see the digs and insults for what they were.
Fine again. He comes across as arrogant sometimes. I get that. And I catch his references too. But I haven’t been reading him for the last however-many years. I’ve read him off and on for the last 3 or 4.
>>In this case it's pretty cowardly to be sitting around carping at NHC for putting themselves on a line with a SPECIFIC forecast every 6 hours that leaves them open to great embarassment, when you're not doing one yourself.
Maybe so. But that’s not my beef, it’s yours. As always, take that type of stuff for what it’s worth. I’m not going to buy into pseudo-hype if he tries to take credit for some obscure mention of a cloud-mass. But I don’t get that’s what he’s usually after. He’s more into discussing pattern recognition and overall synoptic issues.
>>But I used to read Bastardi daily for the simple reason that when trying to chat in a tropical room it was impossible to do so without hordes of naive Bastardi worshippers coming in and parroting whatever he claimed in his column for that day, such that I had to read the column to have a conversation. Of course, it was amusing when you'd routinely catch Bastardi in errors, such as not following the sequence of model lows correctly, etc. In fact, I suspect I have just the last few days; on BBs and in chat I've seen multiple people mysteriously claim that "models" had the current 95E East Pac disturbance "crossing in to the Gulf." I have not seen a single model run in the last 4 days where that occured. (If someone has I'd be curious to find out which one and the date of the run) Some of the models vaguely had the 95E feature (many seem to be losing it now) and some of the models in the 5+ day time frame also developed a SEPARATE vague Bay of Campeche low. On NONE of them did the one cross MX to become the other.
(I condensed the paragraphs). I know what you are saying. Many people live and die off what he says or what they perceive him to have said and state it as fact. There were some runs (12z from Wed. Thurs or Fri) of the ECMWF and GFS that showed a low coming up out of the BoC. One of the long-range GFS runs actually had 2 – the first was a weaker system that closed off south of the LA coast, went inland, moved slowly ENE through MS/AL/GA and then went out to sea while a second, and much stronger, closed off low (appeared to be at least a TS if not Cat 1) formed a few days later striking the Central LA coast. I saw those model runs. I didn’t take Joe’s word that’s what was going to happen. I went and looked for myself. But considering the source and the timing, I didn’t bother to research them beyond watching the runs. Obviously some people will parrot whatever he says. They are free to do so, but should credit the source of their information or simply claim it’s their ‘gut’ feeling if that is in fact the case.
>>Then in chat tonight I found out that it was BASTARDI that claimed that "models" had the low crossing MX in some streaming video a few days ago (He apparently didn't mention this in his text essays, however.) A typical error as he often doesn't really CAREFULLY examine model forecast tropical lows; he just glanced at them and assumed that the EPAC thing crossed over and became the BOC thing (which is possible but very rare, and again, I cannot recall a single model where this happend in this situation.)
Maybe not that rare overall, but I would agree if we were discussing it in the specific context of the month of June. Last year it rained at my house twice from sheared tops of former EPAC tropical concerns. I watched the mid/upper level moisture blow off the LLC, cross Mexico, the Gulf and my neighborhood. It was all Goes-8 verified.
>>At some point you'll get over your infatuation with AccuSux; seems a lot of people have it when the discover an "other" source for forecasting than the NWS.
I didn’t just ‘discover an other source’ for forecasting than the NWS. And I didn’t fall off the friggin’ banana boat yesterday either. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so judgmental as to conclude that you are hip to people’s motives and/or experiences. I’m not that old, but I’ve tracked and followed hundreds of storms in my years. And I will continue to do so. If all you think is that AccuWeather sucks, why bother dealing with them at all, much less writing a multi-paragraph essay (ala Bastardi
) to say so when it’s not even that relative to Derek's and my disagreement?
>>Just remember they're the JV team; they pay less than NWS and generally mets don't take jobs with AccuSux unless they couldn't get one with the NWS.
I don’t know what the pay scales are, but I would assume that’s at least a little especulative. I’m wondering if you would say the same thing about TWC mets or TV-News mets?
In any event, I don’t want to argue just for the sake of arguing. If I happen to believe that Hurricane Alley’s, CSU’s, yours or AccuWeather’s seasonal predictions may be better than a vague seasonal forecast than that tells me there may be 11-15 named storms with 6-9 hurricanes and an x% chance of a Gulf or East Coast landfall, which in essence, has little chance of being wrong, that’s certainly my right. And as noted too many times previously to cite, almost everyone on this very forum had an amateur or guess forecast that fell within the same parameters.
So I stand by my original assessment. It will be of interest to see if their 6/8 regional landfall and intensity at landfall forecast ends up being of value. I say it’s a leap forward from giving simple percentage chances of landfalls. If you don’t like it because you don’t like the personalities or whatever, that’s fine too. Just don’t take me to task or assume you’re somehow in my head and have me figured out. You don’t.
Steve
Btw, it’s “sucks” (It’s English).
>>Again I have to note the irony that you seem infatuated with the brave AccuSux and Bastardi doing more specific landfall forecasts then NOAA and then (effectively) BASH NOAA for giving specific hurricane track forecasts FOUR times a day. Make up your mind as to what you want.
Oh yeah, since you want to play ‘language guru’, it’s technically “than” NOAA. Don’t jump in the middle of a legitimate argument and then tell me I’m doing something wrong. There was a prior thread where D.O. and I debated the merits of the NOAA’s seasonal forecast. He said he uses it and looks forward to it annually. I countered that range-based forecasts and probability schemes could be spun and graded to fit whatever the author then wanted to come back with after the season was complete. Fine. It was a disagreement between us over seasonal forecasts. Then Derek Ortt, who I assume is not you despite the similar aliases, brought in Gilbert’s fiasco. We don’t have an Accuweather outlet in New Orleans, so I’m not familiar with whatever they put out in the 1980’s. I started utilizing their tropical products in 1999 and 2000. And along with other official, professional and amateur services, I can get something out of their tropical products. Obviously some of you guys have issues with Joe Bastardi and whatever he said about Gilbert. We had a related situation in New Orleans. Former “guru” Nash Roberts noted about Betsy before it looped in the Atlantic stating, ‘we have nothing to worry about.’ Well it turned out that it hooked back around, came through South Florida and was the last direct hit of a Category 3 storm in our area. Though he’s retired, he remained a controversial figure in the city. Some people lived for what he said, others didn’t trust him. That comes with the profession.
I don’t have to make up my mind because I didn’t confuse the issue. I simply replied to what others said about Hurricane Gilbert. In New Orleans, our best met, Bob Breck, talked about the size of Gilbert and its likely continued forward momentum. But similarly, if someone is unable to view every tropical update on the TPC site, which is probably at least 80% of the population, then what’s the difference? If Hilda Oldlady gets her news from a TV station who has agreed to only give the official governmental forecasts, but only watches the news every night at 6pm, then she’s MORE OFTEN THAN NOT going to see something completely different with the official forecast on Wed. than she did on Tues. She could similarly be caught off guard. So make up your mind if you want to have a gentlemanly disagreement or if you’re pumping an agenda or just feel like sparring on this forum. I already said I wasn’t going to rehash the same argument, and I'm certainly not a troll looking to tick off the system administrators, many of whom I consider interenet tropical buddies.
>>NOAA does specific, precise, lat-long forecasts 4 times a day, for every system. It's easy to calculate their track error, and they have 4 opportunities a day (that's a lot) to have a track that seems really off (and boy, their bashers will remember that.)
You are correct. But the original argument wasn’t about their 4-times-a-day tracks, it was about post-season scoring of pre-season forecasts. But since you brought it up, there are also personalities that come into play at the TPC. Often they seem to be agenda driven. Some of the forecasters won’t even address issues with developing systems opting in favor of “Tropical Formation is not expected through x-day” when any amateur can see a deepening low pressure system. When there is a storm in my area, I use weighted averages to figure out what I think I’m going to do. Don’t assume for a minute that the NHC isn’t the first link in my “Weather Sites” subfolder in Favorites.
>>AccuSux, in contrast, as best I can tell (I did look prior to the pay thing at times, and I just recently signed up for the 30 day free trial, I have no intention of paying them for anything) simply puts up a vague "wedge" graphic without any lat-long data that can be used for verification, and not much in the way of an intensity forecast. Oddly their graphics were NEVER time-stamped so I had no idea how many times the forecast was updated.
Their broad-based coverage of tropical systems isn’t that great. They have some decent sat loops and all, but their stuff seems to be dated as compared to sats one can get directly from universities, GOES-8, etc. I catch Bastardi in the morning – column and tropical update – and that’s the extent of any influence he has on my daily tropical routine during the active part of the season. Sometimes I’ll check in the afternoon to see if he put out a PM update, but I don’t use their site – just like I don’t use TWC’s site – for what the TPC, NWS, local forecasters and emergency management personnel provide me.
>>And it's perfectly valid to bring up the Galveston debacle, because there are so few actual specific AccuSux tropical forecasts to even deal with. That was one of them (NHC had Gilbert missing Galveston by hundreds of miles.)
That’s fine if we’re debating the merits of Accuweather as an outlet. But the disagreement was over the NOAA’s and other seasonal forecasts.
>>Much less well known but similar was a Cenpac storm that AccuSux decided was going to hit Honolulu, and much panic was started by AccuSux media outlets there, when the CPHC had the storm missing well to the south. The storm, of course, missed well to the south.
I’m sure it won’t be the last time either. But what’s the point? Obviously you don’t like AccuWeather as you continue to note them as “AccuSux.” You could have just come out and said that. Do you think you are better than they are or something? Implying they suck would indicate that or at least a serious degree of contempt.
>>And Bastardi doesn't do specific track forecasting; his track forecasting consists of a long, rambling, often semi-incoherent rant every day where he wanders through a sequence of possibilities such that after the storm is over and you go back and examine his "forecast" it's often unclear exactly what he was forecasting trackwise. Of course, he's quite good at picking and chosing whatever day he highlighted what actually ended up happening and mentioning it afterwards.
Again, why accuse me of bringing this stuff into the argument? Did I say he did specific track forecasting? He usually tells you where he thinks landfall is going to be, and he did fine (though his timing was off) with Isidore and Lili last year. At least he got the state right several days out. And with Lili, that is better than what can be said for several other sources until 24 hours out from landfall.
>>Most of his tropical "skill" seems to be incessant bragging when a storm actually forms that he mentioned a storm forming several days before the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook did.
Once again, this is your beef. It’s not mine. Reference repeated notes on the 6/8 upcoming seasonal forecasts.
>>BFD.
Exactly. But I don’t know why you’re making it into such a BFD.
>>There's a difference between a 10,000 word essay where every day during the tropical season he mentions every conceivable cloud in the Atlantic that could eventually form a storm (thus it's not possible that he'll EVER miss a development) and a brief product like the TWO, intended only to discuss imminent tropical development.
Not the subject of the argument. If you didn’t find any value in the 10,000 word essays, I’m sure you wouldn’t waste your time or wouldn’t have signed up for the 30-day free trial.
>>This would be fine if Bastardi wasn't so prone to snide, backbiting comments about NOAA/NHC regarding forecasting (he's toned it down in recent years, often in response to being taken to task privately by NWS forecasters.) A lot of times it was sort of coded so that you had to be fairly perceptive to penetrate his writing style and see the digs and insults for what they were.
Fine again. He comes across as arrogant sometimes. I get that. And I catch his references too. But I haven’t been reading him for the last however-many years. I’ve read him off and on for the last 3 or 4.
>>In this case it's pretty cowardly to be sitting around carping at NHC for putting themselves on a line with a SPECIFIC forecast every 6 hours that leaves them open to great embarassment, when you're not doing one yourself.
Maybe so. But that’s not my beef, it’s yours. As always, take that type of stuff for what it’s worth. I’m not going to buy into pseudo-hype if he tries to take credit for some obscure mention of a cloud-mass. But I don’t get that’s what he’s usually after. He’s more into discussing pattern recognition and overall synoptic issues.
>>But I used to read Bastardi daily for the simple reason that when trying to chat in a tropical room it was impossible to do so without hordes of naive Bastardi worshippers coming in and parroting whatever he claimed in his column for that day, such that I had to read the column to have a conversation. Of course, it was amusing when you'd routinely catch Bastardi in errors, such as not following the sequence of model lows correctly, etc. In fact, I suspect I have just the last few days; on BBs and in chat I've seen multiple people mysteriously claim that "models" had the current 95E East Pac disturbance "crossing in to the Gulf." I have not seen a single model run in the last 4 days where that occured. (If someone has I'd be curious to find out which one and the date of the run) Some of the models vaguely had the 95E feature (many seem to be losing it now) and some of the models in the 5+ day time frame also developed a SEPARATE vague Bay of Campeche low. On NONE of them did the one cross MX to become the other.
(I condensed the paragraphs). I know what you are saying. Many people live and die off what he says or what they perceive him to have said and state it as fact. There were some runs (12z from Wed. Thurs or Fri) of the ECMWF and GFS that showed a low coming up out of the BoC. One of the long-range GFS runs actually had 2 – the first was a weaker system that closed off south of the LA coast, went inland, moved slowly ENE through MS/AL/GA and then went out to sea while a second, and much stronger, closed off low (appeared to be at least a TS if not Cat 1) formed a few days later striking the Central LA coast. I saw those model runs. I didn’t take Joe’s word that’s what was going to happen. I went and looked for myself. But considering the source and the timing, I didn’t bother to research them beyond watching the runs. Obviously some people will parrot whatever he says. They are free to do so, but should credit the source of their information or simply claim it’s their ‘gut’ feeling if that is in fact the case.
>>Then in chat tonight I found out that it was BASTARDI that claimed that "models" had the low crossing MX in some streaming video a few days ago (He apparently didn't mention this in his text essays, however.) A typical error as he often doesn't really CAREFULLY examine model forecast tropical lows; he just glanced at them and assumed that the EPAC thing crossed over and became the BOC thing (which is possible but very rare, and again, I cannot recall a single model where this happend in this situation.)
Maybe not that rare overall, but I would agree if we were discussing it in the specific context of the month of June. Last year it rained at my house twice from sheared tops of former EPAC tropical concerns. I watched the mid/upper level moisture blow off the LLC, cross Mexico, the Gulf and my neighborhood. It was all Goes-8 verified.
>>At some point you'll get over your infatuation with AccuSux; seems a lot of people have it when the discover an "other" source for forecasting than the NWS.
I didn’t just ‘discover an other source’ for forecasting than the NWS. And I didn’t fall off the friggin’ banana boat yesterday either. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so judgmental as to conclude that you are hip to people’s motives and/or experiences. I’m not that old, but I’ve tracked and followed hundreds of storms in my years. And I will continue to do so. If all you think is that AccuWeather sucks, why bother dealing with them at all, much less writing a multi-paragraph essay (ala Bastardi
) to say so when it’s not even that relative to Derek's and my disagreement?
>>Just remember they're the JV team; they pay less than NWS and generally mets don't take jobs with AccuSux unless they couldn't get one with the NWS.
I don’t know what the pay scales are, but I would assume that’s at least a little especulative. I’m wondering if you would say the same thing about TWC mets or TV-News mets?
In any event, I don’t want to argue just for the sake of arguing. If I happen to believe that Hurricane Alley’s, CSU’s, yours or AccuWeather’s seasonal predictions may be better than a vague seasonal forecast than that tells me there may be 11-15 named storms with 6-9 hurricanes and an x% chance of a Gulf or East Coast landfall, which in essence, has little chance of being wrong, that’s certainly my right. And as noted too many times previously to cite, almost everyone on this very forum had an amateur or guess forecast that fell within the same parameters.
So I stand by my original assessment. It will be of interest to see if their 6/8 regional landfall and intensity at landfall forecast ends up being of value. I say it’s a leap forward from giving simple percentage chances of landfalls. If you don’t like it because you don’t like the personalities or whatever, that’s fine too. Just don’t take me to task or assume you’re somehow in my head and have me figured out. You don’t.
Steve
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Derek Ortt
