The fraud called Irene (Cape Cod)-video

[Bill, KD0HG]

Regarding the Weather Channel:

"There is no such thing as bad publicity."

Author unknown, prolly someone in mass media ownership.

[Burt]

Regarding the Weather Channel:

"There is no such thing as bad publicity."

Author unknown, prolly someone in mass media ownership.

Your comment defines today's media
"Cliff Mass, a climate researcher at the University of Washington and popular Seattle blogger, asks, 'When did Irene stop being a hurricane? ... there is really no reliable evidence of hurricane-force winds at any time the storm was approaching North Carolina or moving up the East Coast. ... I took a look at all the observations over Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Not one National Weather Service or FAA observation location, not one buoy observations, none reach the requisite wind speed. Most were not even close. ... Surely, one of the observations upwind of landfall, over Cape Hatteras or one of the other barrier island locations, indicated hurricane-force sustained winds? Amazingly, the answer is still no.' Cliff supports his statement with data from NOAA/NWS/NDBC presented in easy to understand charts."

[KX5JT]

Of course the media hypes it up.  They're the media.  As mentioned before they will always put the worse thing damage wise on the camera.  It's comical when there's a weather anchor (ESPECIALLY from the Weather Channel) out on a beach ahead of a storm, the winds might be picking up to 30 or 40 mph gusts, and as SOON as they camera is on them, they ACT like they are being pushed back by gusts, then the rest of the report they are fine. 

I've walked out in hurricane force winds and it's not easy to stay perfectly straight but those clowns exaggerate everything.

[kb3ouk]

i watched a little of the weather channel saturday, and was a little amazed at how many times they said for everyone to stay inside and not go out for any reason, then next minute they show one of their people out on the beach, and then say something that basically amounted to they know what they are doing and are safe out there

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I was a fan of the weather channel back in the 90s when it was focused on what it advertised: weather. The first clue that they were trying to be an entertainment channel was a show called Atmospheres which dealt with their personal vacations and travels. It flopped, as have many since, no doubt.

Local coverage was pretty good down here, but they had very little about points north, which I was interested in. If nothing else, it was a good reminder of why I stopped watching TWC years ago.

Hope to get the 40m dipole back up in the air tomorrow, took it down before the storm to swap on a longer feedline.

[nq5t]

As is becoming clear to me fraud was not the best word, over-hyped would have been better. My point is The Weather Channel said 100 year storm when it was clear it was not. It was a bad storm, but not the end of the east coast as national TV led you to believe.

it was overhyped only from the perspective of an after the fact viewpoint.  The hype most likely saved a lot of life.  Regardless of what that idiot George Will had to say after the fact, or that Ron Paul thinks we should just do what Galveston did in 1900 -- muddle on, after burying and burning 12000 bodies.  It's JUST a hurricane after all.

As for the TV reporters who turn nut job and hang out on the beach, eventually one of those crews is going to get swept away and that will be the end of that.

I'd rather be scared crapless and do what I need to do to stay alive, than think it was all just "hype", and end up not so well.  Day-after pontification about how the forecasters got it wrong again is just plain dumb.

[The Slab Bacon]

(My last comment on this one!)

Dan, (and others)
                         One thing you have to keep in mind is that so many people take the hyped-up media news as gospel, be it good or bad. This causes somewhat a "mass hysteria" effect. A good example of this was that my wife was freaking out because she couldn't get any "flashlight batteries" at any of the local stores. We got into an agument when I called her an idiot for taking the local news as gospel.
We have 4 or 5 flashlights around the house, and they are all rechargeable! ! ! !
We dont have a friggin thing that even uses flashlight batteries! ! ! ! ! ! !

At least in this neck of the woods, the news media has more power over the people than the local politicians do! !  They pretty much decide the elections as well by who's advertizing they carry.

They pretty much had a feeding frenzy over the coming "storm of the century" and scared the people into hoarding every kind of survival stuff they could. The shelves in the stores were empty and the shoppers were in full feeding frenzy mode! ! ! !
They need to report the news as it happens, honestly and truthfully, short, sweet, and simple. Not embelish the stories for the highest shock and awe factors.

I was out in that mess for most of the night (on foot) (prolly why I got a cold now) and in the Baltimore area it really wasn't all that bad. Honestly, the nasty "pop-up" thunderboomers that we got last weekend were by far more violent than Irene was, and they made NO mention of them on the news.  And when they are calling for snow, you'd thing the world was coming to an end for 1 or 2" of snow! ! !

They should simply report the FACTS and allow you to make your own decisions on what to do and what not to do. If you make poor decisions, it was your choice, and you pay the price, short, sweet, and simple.

Maybe it would help restore the missing gene for common sense that is missing from the current DNA chain for modern man! ! ! ! ! !

Just my $.02 worth..................

That's it for me on this one. Over and Out ...-.-      

[K3ZS]

I was wondering why the weather channel had a brief or no local forecast during the hurricane in my area.   We were on the very fringe of the rain, but the "local on the 8's" was not shown.   I turned on my computer to the NWS web site to see the radar rain coverage.    The intensity ratings for hurricanes ought to be expanded to include total destruction rather than just wind speed.    Hurricane Agnes, or whatever it was when it hit Pennsylvania, was the most destructive to ever hit the state, mostly due to the flooding from 12" of rain.   Something Vermont and other areas are finding out now.

[W3SLK]

Yeah but what really sucked was that the Mt Holly, NJ  Doppler radar site went down before the storm started tracking up the coast. 

[KM1H]

From what Ive read many of the US deaths simply removed idiots from the gene pool.

Some defied evacuation orders, others got washed away on a beer run, that fool in a canoe, others on a jetty or pier, out in a sailboat, etc. And then there are the clueless that simply cant fathom the power of water and wander along in a dream state...often young and female.
No loss except maybe to relatives and friends. With the roads mostly deserted the traffic deaths otherwise would have far exceeded all of Irenes body count.

Since the dollar keeps tanking the billions keep going up but the damage is really less than say Carol/Edna in 54, Bill in 91, etc.

I have to give NYC credit for advance planning.

Carl

[K3ZS]

In PA, two deaths were caused by branches falling on campers!    Camping during a hurricane?   I cancelled my weekend camping trip.

[W1FVB]

Here's something interesting..
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/08/29/2222252/When-Did-Irene-Stop-Being-a-Hurricane

[Steve - K4HX]

Please do not confuse most TV "news" outlets products to anything relating to reality - especially in the area of weather reporting. You will be much better off when you realize this.

You guys in New England got off relatively easy. Yes, there are many specific cases of damage, injury and maybe even death. I'm not discounting any individual's misfortune. But in general, or over all, NE didn't get anything like what we got here in Southeast VA and NC. And that could have been pretty easily predicted before the storm. But since the major media markets are all north of here, the coverage both pre and post storm centered on NYC, Boston, Philly and DC instead of Richmond, Norfolk, VA Beach, Elizabeth City, Morehead City, and the Outer Banks in NC, etc. These areas were in the worst of the storm and this was obvious as the storm approached and even more obvious after the storm.

Please do not confuse most TV "news" outlets products to anything relating to reality - especially in the area of weather reporting. You will be much better off when you realize this.

[WA1GFZ]

The best one I heard was the warning about lighting your house with candles. You could have a fire. GMAFB

[W3SLK]

Steve said:

But since the major media markets are all north of here, the coverage both pre and post storm centered on NYC, Boston, Philly and DC instead of Richmond, Norfolk, VA Beach, Elizabeth City, Morehead City, and the Outer Banks in NC, etc.

On the contrary Steve. I thought there was good coverage as the storm came ashore. As a matter of fact, Directv ran a channel specifically for Irene coverage. They started out as a broadcast from WAVY-TV 10 in Norfolk and moved up the coast as the storm advanced. It was interesting hearing and seeing all the places closed or with damage because I hadn't been there in close to 25 years!

[Steve - K4HX]

That's good to hear. I did not catch this not having DirecTV. From my viewing of TWC, some major TV networks and a few non-local radio stations, the coverage skewed north and east from here.

Steve said:

But since the major media markets are all north of here, the coverage both pre and post storm centered on NYC, Boston, Philly and DC instead of Richmond, Norfolk, VA Beach, Elizabeth City, Morehead City, and the Outer Banks in NC, etc.

On the contrary Steve. I thought there was good coverage as the storm came ashore. As a matter of fact, Directv ran a channel specifically for Irene coverage. They started out as a broadcast from WAVY-TV 10 in Norfolk and moved up the coast as the storm advanced. It was interesting hearing and seeing all the places closed or with damage because I hadn't been there in close to 25 years!

[W1ATR]

The best one I heard was the warning about lighting your house with candles. You could have a fire. GMAFB

Wow, that was a throwback to the old dialup bulletin board days. My other favorite one was/is DILLIGAF.

[w1vtp]

Dan

Well said.  Yes, we need to filter a lot of data that comes from the media, but I think both you and I along with many others appreciate that we have data at all.  The 1938 hurricane came to New England without much warning with around 600 people killed.  The Great Hurricane of Galveston was marked by very little warning and over 6000 people were killed.  We certainly are fortunate that we have the "talking heads" the technology, indeed, the warnings repeated until they become irritating.  We at least have the time to make intelligent, sane decisions that might save our lives and others we love.

73  Al

[w3jn]

The AFN news channel rotates between Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and I saw that Piers Morgan on CNN devoted his show last night to defending CNN's somewhat overblown coverage.   He interviewed one of CNN's WXmen who was extremely defensive.

Fox and MSNBC had almost identical coverage.  Apparently NOTHING else happened in the rest of the world the whole weekend.  I'm betting that the 80% of the country that wasn't affected by the hurricane was pretty pissed.  At least they could have taken a break every once in a while to cover the war in Libya, or the fact that we got al-Qaiada's #2.

[kg8lb]

 The high point..if there was one, was the media reporter who was reporting on the "Sea Foam". Gave a real fine account of the stuff right down to commenting "tastes like sand" when some blew into his mouth as he stood there, totally covered with the "foam". Best part came when he found out the "foam" was raw sewage .

   I guess calling it "Sea Foam" could be considered fraud 

[W2PFY]

DILLIGAF

There was a bar in the Albany NY area called the above but there are many using the name across the country.

[Jim, W5JO]

I don't know.  Say a tornado warning is issued for my home and the tornado misses by one half mile, is that over-hype?  I don't thing so.  The reason you were missed is that the Hurricane Center can't predict with 100% certainty where damage will occur.  That is why you see that "cone of uncertainty".  

Same relationship exists with normal weather forecasts.  They are "accurate" to about 85% in 36 hours then the accuracy rapidly falls off.  It is really a crap shoot to forecast more than 2 days is you want accuracy.

[DMOD]

Interesting time lapse of Irene from Space:


http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/8-days-of-irene-seen-from-space-21743#loc=41/169/21729

[K2PG]

1. The only thing predictable about hurricanes is that they're unpredictable.

2. That "fraud" washed out several bridges in Wyoming County, PA and did a lot of damage in the Back Mountain area near Wilkes-Barre. Much of the Back Mountain is still without power (including one of my employer's transmitter sites, which has been on generator power since Sunday morning), as the storm took down several major power company feeders. A lot of trees were uprooted, as the ground was already saturated from a very wet summer.

3. As a slow moving storm with lots of rain, Irene had the potential to be another Agnes here in northeastern PA. But that potential was never realized. There was localized flooding, but not the huge flood of 1972 which put most of the Wyoming Valley under water.

4. That said, a lot of the television coverage, at least in the NYC area, was typical sleazy yellow journalism. Perhaps the worst offender was WABC-TV, which made Irene look like another Katrina. Nevertheless, many people in the metropolitan area are still without power, while areas that were not expected to be hit hard--the Catskill Mountain region of New York State and the state of Vermont--were clobbered.

5. The performance of the radio stations in this area (northeastern PA) was despicable. Only WMGS (adult contemporary) and WARM (oldies) had reports on the air about the storm and advisories from local emergency management people.  One of the local news/talk stations was off the air, the other one was running cheesy infomercials (no information about the progress of the storm or about road closures, but I could find out about quack diet "supplements" that are claimed to enlarge a certain body part) and the other music stations just played their music from either a satellite dish or an automation system, complete with canned, voicetracked jocks. EAS? That's a joke! Plenty of "flood warnings" and "high wind warnings" for individual counties, but no detailed information.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Thirteen towns in Vermont still isolated by the "fraud called Irene".