Weather Hype

Looking at spaghetti models for tropical disturbances can kind of be like searching for potential symptoms for what ails you online. If you look hard enough, you’ll likely find something which suggests you’re screwed. The fact of the matter is modeling has dramatically improved over the years. The fact of the matter is also that even the very best modeling contains meaningful margins of error. The more highly developed a center of circulation, the more reliable the modeling happens to be. That makes hurricanes more accurate to forecast than tropical storms and tropical storms more accurate to forecast than disturbances – which lack a center of circulation. With all of the advances in modeling here’s the reality on the ground. The five-day cone of error for a hurricane via the National Hurricane Center contains a margin of error rate of 210 miles. And as we’re looking at the current cone for the potential impact of a hurricane somewhere within our state next week here’s some perspective on what that means. If you travel across the state from Fort Lauderdale to Naples, it’s 108 miles. That means the Hurricane Center’s five-day cone for a hurricane has margin of error that's as extensive as making a round trip across the state in South Florida. As the whole state of Florida is effectively within the cone of uncertainty, as the hurricane center explains, the 5-year average shows tropical systems remain within the 5-day window 60%-70% of the time. There’s an old joke that the safest place to be is in the center of the cone five days out. That’s to say a lot can and most often changes. The pragmatic approach is to be prepared for the potential impact of a hurricane coming out of this weekend, pay attention to the Hurricane Center’s map and our reporting...and to eat spaghetti as opposed to looking at tropical models of it.