Wow

[WESTCHESTERPA]

one last comment, I've only had a computer for six months, so once I begin harnessing all the info now at my fingertips, watch-out! My forcasts will be worth their weight in gold

[Derecho]

Kudos to Joe Bastardi. He had this one nailed before anyone!!!!

That's because he forecasts tropical development constantly.

In June and July, he forecast tropical development on 36 different times, only to have each forecast be a failure. He never went longer than 4 days without forecasting development in the next week. Basically, he had a continuously standing "watch the GOM and/or Atlantic for tropical development" the entire tropical season.

It's IMPOSSIBLE for Bastardi NOT to forecast something forming.

I've found people find this spectacularly hard to understand, but if you keep forecasting the same thing and have a hit, you don't deserve "kudos."

If you're rolling a six sided die, and you says you think the next roll will be a "six" and you roll it 5 times, and when you get a "6" on the 5th roll finally, you don't suddenly run around claiming to be a psychic.

[Joseph]

Go get'em old timer! Show these young whipper-snappers how it's done.

[vbhoutex]

I've been tracking the weather daily for almost 60 years, keeping my own stats, diaries etc...I will accept the challenge, and start posting my forcasts

You are more than welcome to post your forecasts here. If you have been doing weather observation and recording for the last 60 years then you should be darn good at forecasting any type of weather and I look forward to finding out how good you are!!! My father, when he was alive, did the same thing as long as I can remember, which is over 50 years and he was darn good at telling what was going to happen and he never even got around to finding out what was available on the web, unfortunately due to cancer. If he had I would have put his skills up against anyones and he was never trained as a met.

[WESTCHESTERPA]

Thanks for your comments, very much appreciated. I look forward to spending time on this board.

[Derecho]

from Accuweather was forcasting this (Gaston development) well over a week ago. The NHC seems to miss a lot of storms that fall outside of their computer generated models, and seem to be unwilling (or lacking the training?) to use alternative modes of forcasting. Similar thing happened with Charley: Privately owned meteorological groups screaming days in advance that Charley would track south and east of Tampa, yet NHC didn't change their forcaste until the morning before landfall.

Bastardi and Accuweather hug models just as strongly as anyone else. They hugged the models for Charley MORE than NHC, and got burned.

By "Privately Owned meteorological groups" do you mean anyone other than Accuweather? Who, specifically?

Here's the Accuweather forecast track for Charley from the night before landfall (the critical time, after hurricane warnings were already issued); they don't archive their forecast tracks anywhere I can find (so of course their mistakes are hidden) but I captured the GIF:




Notice the track is WEST OF THE NHC tracks on Friday; the Accuweather forecast track was NORTH of Tampa, and never went back over water.

Accuweather was far worse on the Charley track than NHC.

Whatever "screaming" there was about NHC in the days leading up to Charley, it was that their track was too far EAST; a lot of people thought it was going into the Big Bend or Panhandle.

[Wthrman13]

ROFL...

Yeah, if I forecasted every single trade-wind cumulus cloud to develop into a hurricane, eventually I would be "right on the ball" too.

[ColdFront77]

The only indication we get of potential development are in Tropical Weather Outlooks and Tropical Weather Dicussions. The Discussions have more to offer than the Outlooks.

If there was an area of cloudiness, showers and/or thunderstorms off the east coast 8 adys ago, the Tropical Prediction Center would have mentioned it in the Outlook.