A little info regarding the track so far.

[Guest]

Hopefully this will resolve the issue of how well they have been doing so far with regards to the track.

The 120 hour forecast made last Friday at 5 pm, valid at 2 pm EDT today was for 22.5°N 69.0°W. The 2 pm position was 21.8°N 70.5°W. An error of only 107 miles (93 NM). This stacks up against the average error that NHC says in their bulletins is 374 miles (325 NM). Not bad at all IMHO.

So lets all please ease up some because these are very knowlegable people here at the nhc and as well a few on this site.

Have a good night all.

[mf_dolphin]

AMEN!

[mel38]

they have been really good within 200 miles with this storm

[Sean in New Orleans]

Thus far, I've been very impressed with the NHC with Frances and all tropical systems this season.

[Tri-State_1925]

Predicting where the storm will hit land accurately is a lot more important than where the storm is over open water. Let's see how accurate their track predictions are about 24 hours pre-landfall with this storm. Because even 6 hours pre-landfall with Charley they were off by quite a bit.

[Guest]

Predicting where the storm will hit land accurately is a lot more important than where the storm is over open water. Let's see how accurate their track predictions are about 24 hours pre-landfall with this storm. Because even 6 hours pre-landfall with Charley they were off by quite a bit.

The point i was making was that the call from that far out IMHO was a very good one. And alot of people were starting to bust on thier call so far. Which as i pointed out was a dam good call and not bad at all as some were starting to say. I guess you missed that. And with this cane your talking a whole other beast because unlike Charley this Cane is alot larger and will affect alot more land area then Charley did. So please as well lets not just worry about where the eye makes landfall because people a good distance away from the eye will be feeling its affects as well up and down the FL coast and points further north and or west perhaps.
Either way like i said it was a dam good call imo unlike some who said they have busted badly.

[KeyLargoDave]

King, I think you're absolutely right. I've been writing down every track prediction and then checking them against location updates. It really is impressive work by the NHC. No reason to offhandedly criticize anything they did with Charley, or any storm in the 18 hurricane seasons I've spent in Florida.

I also appreciate the guidance from all the forecasters here. Every degree matters a lot to me, if it makes a south Dade landfall, it'll be hell getting out of here, running into a mass evacuation in Miami too -- but if it's a landfalling Cat. 4, we have to get off this island.

Plan B of course is going West to Marathon or farther.

[Cookiely]

In our enlightened age we expect far more than the NHC is able to give and their lies the problem. People expect three days away from landfall "It's going to hit an exact spot at an exact time" Forecasting is still half science and half art. In this age of science its hard to swallow that we don't know it all yet and may never. Mother Nature can be a fickle lady.

[wsquared77]

Amen Cookiely...sometimes I think we expect forecasters to have some sort of psycic ability about these things. I can't tell you how many times we were forecasted to get a snow storm where I used to live and then would end up with a warm ,clear day! That's why it's SO important to prepare no matter what. We live in Homestead, way south of the current landfall predictions, but we are preparing as if we were expecting a direct hit. We don't want to take any chances, especially with our 2 year old son.