MiamiensisWx wrote:Remember that severe wx and winter systems (plus all non-tropical subjects) supposedly don't affect anyone, so they receive no attention on this board.
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The tropical threads will continue to attract nonsense until people realize other meteorological events affect humans, too.
This is something I've been waiting for someone to say for the longest time. I didn't want to be the one to do it, because if I did, I'd do it in a very angry tone, and no one would listen.
Granted, I'm not expecting anyone to listen even if it's presented in a civil tone; there is a serious and somewhat perplexing obsession with the tropics here. Some people do not understand that there is indeed other weather, and other people do get affected; they simply don't care, which is why participation here drops off sharply during the winter and spring - that is, unless there is out-of-season development (when all common sense seems to be lost). During the summer, participation in all other forums falls off sharply, and I would imagine 80% of the users who post during the Atlantic hurricane season are unaware of what goes on elsewhere.
If there were a Category 4 fish storm in the Atlantic at the same time as a major severe weather outbreak affecting ten U.S. states and causing major damage, the Category 4 fish would get more attention - namely from people proposing strange theories on how the fish could somehow affect the U.S. despite the models and forecasts saying it won't (substitute in a Zeta-like storm and a paralyzing blizzard during the offseason). The only times people are interested in anything other than Atlantic tropical cyclones are when those events have killed a very large number of people or caused an incredible amount of damage, and even then there is far more interest in the Atlantic storms. Whenever the focus is on the Atlantic, -removed- rules the day despite rules strongly discouraging it.
Typhoon Durian was the deadliest tropical cyclone anywhere in the world in 2006, but it received virtually no attention. Cyclone Sidr was one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in recent years (the deadliest since Hurricane Mitch, in fact), and it received little attention for quite some time. The thread on the Greensburg tornado has 328 posts, but almost all of them are from four or five users.