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One bright spot in this whole mess was how spot on the forecasts were. I'm amazed how the experts knew that Irma would turn North like that.
They've probably saved tens of thousands of lives, once again thanks to science.
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If you're interested in the accuracy of the forecasts, here's a time lapse of predicted paths vs actual path for Harvey, Irma and Jose.
https://imgur.com/a/zuk7r
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Look on youtube for videoes of Alabama meteorologist Alan Sealls.
Regarding hurricane Irma. You walk away feeling smarter than you did before you watched the video. The way he explains things gives you complete understanding of what is going on with the weather.
If he was a teacher when I was in school I would have been a meteorologist myself.
Here's one..
https://www.popsugar.com/news/Best-Weath...a-43991500
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Alan is very popular on the internet. I'll also add that
http://tropicaltidbits.com is my favorite resource for understanding weather forecasts and meteorology. His videos are always informative.
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"
If you're interested in the accuracy of the forecasts, here's a time lapse of predicted paths vs actual path for Harvey, Irma and Jose.
https://imgur.com/a/zuk7r"
Thanks for that, Eric. It's a nice demonstration of why forecasts of hurricane tracks tend to show three and five-day tracks only. Three-day tracks are clearly quite accurate while the five-day forecasts are still very good, but the errors increase. Beyond that, you still get a decent idea of the track but given the number of variables that need to be calculated plus the fact that the atmosphere is somewhat of a chaotic system, they are still pretty good. I think the meteorologists have done a wonderful job in recent years improving these forecasts, and as Paul says, have saved many lives.