Have the Weather Channel and rest of media overhyped Irene?
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Have the Weather Channel and rest of media overhyped Irene?
Wow. Hurricane Irene -- or maybe Tropical Storm Irene to any New Yorkers reading this -- hasn't hit the Northeast yet. But already -- and yes, I'm mixing my catastrophe metaphors here -- the fallout has begun. News that the sustained winds of what some have billed as "the storm of the century" or "the East Coast's Katrina" have already dipped below 100 mph before the storm even makes its first landfall in North Carolina have sparked what you might call Friday Night Quarterbacking.
Consider what one expert wrote tonight:
The demise of Irene has already begun. There is no visible eye. The storm intensity is down to 99 mph. This would be a low-end category 2 or a strong category 1 storm, while 36 hours ago some predicted a catastrophic category 4 storm. Air Force Reserve aircraft have found that Irene's eyewall has collapsed, and the central pressure has risen -- rising pressure means a weakening storm.
Already on social networks and elsewhere, there's a growing chorus of complainers that the storm has been overhyped, and many are blaming the media -- specifically the Weather Channel, a for-profit venture that flourishes on weather misery -- for overdramatizing the storm for TV ratings and the dollars that flow with that. It's not just bloggers in pajamas in their mother's basement who are griping; even the Washington Post has joined the crowd of pre-Irene skeptics. It specifically went after the Weather Channel:.
While expressing great admiration for Weather Channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross, Ryan calls “pretty apocalyptic” his vision for the course of Irene.
Weather watchers with the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang pronounce a similar skepticism. Gang member Dan Stillman: “It’s not going to be unprecedented for North Carolina or even the mid-Atlantic. And given that it will probably be no worse than a low-to-mid-end Category 1 when it gets to New York City, it’s not going to be their Katrina — even though significant flooding and damaging winds are possible, both inland and especially toward the coast, in both the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast.”
So...are the skeptics right? Is Irene going to be the hurricane/tropical storm equivalent of all hat and no cattle? My answer is something that seems impossible for anyone living in the 21st Century: Let's just wait and see! It's already clear that Irene won't be the Cat 3 or even Cat 4 monster some were hyping a day or two ago; on the other hand, some otherwise unmemorable, no-name storms have been known to cause lengthy power outages, dangerous downed trees, and basement flooding in my neck of the woods. I'm preparing for those things -- which are pretty bad, "East Coast Katrina" or no "East Coast Katrina" -- to happen again this weekend. So should you.
Still, it will be a big problem, in my opinion, if we wake up Monday morning and learn that Irene was hugely overhyped. Why? Because some day in this century, there really will be "the storm of the century." But if the public officials who ended up looking silly with their hair-trigger evacuations and cancellations of everything from trains to baseball games issue the exact same warnings then, will anyone listen to them -- or the Weather Channel?
I sure won't listen to anyone who can't even spell "will" correctly, especially when it is his name. "wiill anyone listen to them -- or the Weather Channel?"— kcphilly- I sure won't listen to anyone who can't even spell "will" correctly, especially when it is his name. "wiill anyone listen to them -- or the Weather Channel?"— kcphilly
- Will Bunch jumping on the conservative bandwagon, even if only for this one issue? I thought I would never see the day. Have all the tea-party thumping in Comments as of late taken their toll?— Fred Berry
- Better to be over-hyped and then either relieved or disappointed (depending on your good sense) than to be taken unaware the way people were in 1938. Any sensible person looking at the spaghetti strands and cone of uncertainty would recognize that Irene might head east and those of us in the northeastern U.S. would miss it. It was more of a surprise that the intensity is weakening. I am hoping that this means we do not have seek the part of our house least likely to be hit by a falling tree.— Archimedes
- Funny thing is that if it had remained a CAT3 or gone to CAT4 Bunch and his friends would be hiding under beds waiting for Obama to save them. The rest of us prepare as we should and hope for the best.— TKL008
Comment removed.- Barry cut his vacation short, the logic is with all of his blowhard retoric, he can blow a hurricane out to sea. Finally he does something constructive when he opens his mouth.— TKL008
- Its obviously Ackerman's fault.— bjps1353
- I agree. This article is BS. I will believe the hype and hope the hype goes right preparing for the hype. Rather be safe than really sorry. Dear Inquirer your blogging is garbage and not real reporting and I've been reading you since I was a kid and this is the worst you've ever been.— misch32
- That's exceptional America— DuncanIdaho
- Oh for crying out loud. I don't know the protocol by which a news organization can decide to mention the possibility of an increasingly powerful storm based on probabilities built into models but I always just go to the data - noaa and the national hurricane center break it down in its probability - as it should be. "There's a chance the storm increased to a Cat 3" - great. Whats the prob.? Thats what it comes down to.— Murrayman
- =={{{{ I sure won't listen to anyone who can't even spell "will" correctly, especially when it is his name. "wiill anyone listen to them -- or the Weather Channel? }}}===
Would you listen to anyone who doesn't realize that if you hit "submit" more than once, your post will appear more than once?— Talking point sleuth - I'm pretty sure Lowes and Home Depot are behind this whole thing! :)
— cubalaw - The media loves drama and will overhype anything that will sell a story. Just wait after the fact like "Irene" and then read about all the flood damage, broken windows, or Mrs. Jones missing poodle.— conan the destroyer
So, this is not Weather of Mass Destruction, we were lied to? maybe it's a storm that will cover more states than just one sparsely populated one and the states that it's hitting this time are not run by country bumpkins that believe that god is pissing into a salad spinner. We have better run governments that don't think praying your way through the disaster counts, it's paying your way with taxes that actually do something good.
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