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Monday, July 08, 2013

Two quick bits about tropical forecasts

First, when the storm is this far out, the models are telling us less about when and where the storm is going and more about what day in the week we should actually start paying attention to the models.

In Chantal's case, that appears to be Thursday at the earliest.



Second, when we do get into "spaghetti model" territory, it's helpful to remember that, a few years ago, Varg gave us a helpful pronunciation guide.

2 comments:

Todd Price said...

Fuck it. I'm going to the lake anyway on Friday. Bring it on.

joejoejoe said...

I like the NHC Wind Speed Probability forecast. It gives you an actual percentage chance of a given wind speed at your location forecasted in 12 hour chunks out to 2 days, then 24 hour chunks to 5 days. Seeing the spaghetti or cone go over your house in a forecast is scary but a 5% chance of getting hit by a CAT 5 storm should concern people more than a 50% chance of getting hit by a Tropical Storm. The spaghetti and cones don't convey that.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIAPWSAT3+shtml/090256.shtml?