How important is the 2019 hurricane forecast to you?
Government shutdown could hurt hurricane forecasts, delay storm reports - Palm Beach Post
Excerpt: Storm experts at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are working through the government shutdown, but with other federal agencies on furlough, some of the hurricane analysis and forecast modeling that happens during the winter months is on hold.
It’s a pause that could delay life-saving upgrades to forecasts, said Eric Blake, the National Weather Service union steward at the National Hurricane Center.
“This is our main time of year when we improve on things,” Blake said. “But it’s basically at a standstill, at least on the modeling side, and the longer it goes on, the less likely they will improve by the start of hurricane season.”
And while the hurricane center is still working on the postmortem storm reports it does on every hurricane from the previous year, the closure of agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, National Ocean Service and FEMA make it difficult to gather the necessary information.
Bottom Line: At the end of this partial shutdown and with the next botched hurricane forecast I’m going to feel compelled to create a shirt that says we were promised “life-saving upgrades to forecasts” but only got were these crappy predictions instead. This is one of many in a series of South Florida media’s efforts to attempt to scare you into supporting status quo government. Gee I wonder what the union head of impacted employees might say? The best part is how his quote goes from category five status “delay life-saving upgrades”, to something that lacked any organization “the longer it goes on the less likely they (hurricane models) will improve. So, what you’re telling us is that there’s no indication that modeling will improve but hey, anything’s possible but maybe not while some of the people are furloughed... Ok, got it. For future fear mongering references your best argument would be reminding us of how often you place South-Eastern Florida smack dab in the middle of direct strikes only to have the forecasts vary greatly in the 11th hour. Something we can all agree on is the need for improvements.