After Dorian, Forecasters Ask: Can Too Much Hurricane Data Be a Bad Thing?
As Hurricane Dorian dissipates over the Atlantic Ocean, it highlights a tension for forecasters: balancing a bunch of better data with information overload. The science of hurricane forecasting keeps improving, producing earlier, more precise projections of a storm’s path. Warmer air and water are expected to increase the intensity of storms and the rainfall they produce, scientists say. Dorian’s characteristics—slow, meandering and ferocious—compounded the problem.
More accurate data gives more time for emergency planners and residents in a storm’s potential track to prepare. But, meteorologists and researchers say, the long lead-up also can result in saturation storm coverage and social-media hype that leads some people to tune out. The National Hurricane Center’s first advisory on the storm came out Aug. 24, nearly two weeks before it made U.S. landfall in North Carolina. That long lead time, along with the devastation it caused as it parked itself over the northwestern Bahamas, increased anxiety in the U.S. For many in Florida and other states along the Eastern Seaboard, the hurricane didn’t end up being the catastrophic event they had feared in the long lead time.
(snip)
Errors in the forecast track this decade are about half the magnitude they had in the 1990s, according to the hurricane center. In recent years, the center has developed new tools and graphics, like one showing the arrival time of tropical-storm-force winds and another showing areas under storm-surge watches and warnings.
(snip)
Hurricane modeling has steadily advanced with the help of sophisticated satellites and powerful computers. In 2003, the National Hurricane Center first began issuing a five-day forecast cone, up from three days. In 2010, the center increased the lead time for tropical-cyclone watches and warnings by 12 hours, to 48 hours and 36 hours, respectively. A hurricane watch means hurricane conditions are possible, while a warning means they are expected.
(snip)
Meteorologists from Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy Corp. drew on forecasts and their own model developed in house to estimate the number of customer outages and calculate how many utility crews would be needed to restore power, as well as when and where to stage them. Planners adjusted as new storm data came in, said Sarah Wambles, Duke’s director of reliability engineering. Ahead of Dorian, Duke moved in 4,000 repair workers from 23 states and Canada to North Carolina and South Carolina to supplement the 5,000 workers based in the two states, which suffered extensive outages.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-dorian-forecasters-ask-can-too-much-hurricane-data-be-a-bad-thing-11567961746 (paid subscription)
= new reply since forum marked as read
