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Peaked Hurricane Season, Meteorological Narrative Busters & Inflation Econ 101 – Top 3 Takeaways – September 12th, 2022
- Past the peak. We passed the peak of hurricane season over the weekend and did so with a map that’s as clear as I can remember for this time of year. It’s been a long time since it was fun covering hurricane season but this season’s proving to be one of the most enjoyable in that regard. Not only isn’t there a potential threat looming in the tropics, I can’t recall the last time we crossed the peak of the season with the National Hurricane Center’s map reading Tropical Cyclone Activity is not expected during the next 48 hours. And heck, even the five-day forecast only shows a weak disturbance that’s unlikely to amount to anything. The last year we crossed the peak of hurricane season with five or fewer named storms and two or fewer hurricanes was 1994. In that year, one of the most benign in history, we had only seven named storms and three hurricanes. So yeah, we’re enjoying our lowest drama hurricane season in 28 years and are pacing one of the most inactive hurricane seasons in history since record keeping began in 1851. That is a fun fact, especially against the backdrop of the doom and gloom forecasting heading into this season by literally every meteorological entity which produces hurricane forecasts. That’s another reason this has been fun for me to cover, aside from it being good news thus far for us, this hurricane season continues to be a bigtime...
- Narrative buster for the meteorological doom and gloomers. If you’re familiar with my work, you know that there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. I don’t do narratives, especially when they’re driven solely by agendas. As I mentioned in a recent Q&A: You might have noticed we seemingly have had more Saharan Dust clouds flying over South Florida. It’s not your imagination, we have. Now, I specifically had been researching this because my wife Ashley has asthma, and the increasing Saharan Dust activity has meant she’s had to change inhalers, use them more often and frequently pops Zyrtec. As part of my research into the Saharan Dust I came across a Harvard study in 2020 entitled Climate change affects Saharan dust stroms. The lead line says it all: A New groundbreaking study shows that warming planet will make dust storms more intense in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Now, without diving into all of the specs of the study, the bottom line is this. The past couple of years we have seen a marked increase in Saharan Dust clouds and Harvard’s researchers offer extensive evidence that rising temperatures/climate change is behind it. Few things act as a greater hurricane repellant than massive dust clouds across the entire Atlantic (crossing over into the Gulf). The question is, why didn’t hurricane researchers account for this? This hurricane season has been as inactive as it's been up to now due largely to well above normal Saharan Dust clouds. It’s also the reason the rainy season hasn’t been nearly as rainy as usual for many in South Florida this year. But is this front and center in the collective meteorological conversation? Seemingly not. At least not publicly. And this is illustrative of what happens when narratives are latched onto as opposed to being truly analytical in the dissemination of information. And the creation of hurricane forecasts as the case may be. The metrological community may have been generally correct about climate change yet failed to analyze all of the related effects. What will be interesting going forward is what the explanation will be. Will the climate agenda/narrative color coverage and information or will there be intellectual honesty about this phenomenon? You might imagine some with climate agendas not wanting to publicly admit that it’s possible climate change could result in fewer hurricanes. I don’t know what will happen from here this hurricane season, but I do know that we’re currently pacing a hurricane season that’s a third of what the hurricane forecasters said it would be. A third. Will there be intellectual honesty, or will there continue to be narratives?
- It's a big data week ahead. Tomorrow’s the monthly inflation report, Wednesday’s the wholesale inflation report, Friday is the state jobs data. Expectations are for the rate of inflation, which peaked above 9% in June, to fall for a second straight month to 8.1%. That’s the number to watch anything above that number will mean the Fed, which has already stated “there will be economic pain”, as though there already hasn’t been for the average American, will be inclined to be even more aggressive in raising interest rates. Anything below that number would mean life was a little less painful last month and the Fed would be less likely to deliver more of it through especially aggressive interest rate increases.