I didn’t realize that the edge of the pattern merely represented a possible location for the center of the storm.
Apparently even people outside of the cone are in significant danger. How far outside? Who knows?
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The NHC maps like this usually have the accompanying text to explain the uncertainty of the forecasted hurricane track:
NHC tropical cyclone forecast tracks can be in error. This forecast uncertainty is conveyed by the track forecast “cone”, the solid white and stippled white areas in the graphic. The solid white area depicts the track forecast uncertainty for days 1-3 of the forecast, while the stippled area depicts the uncertainty on days 4-5. Historical data indicate that the entire 5-day path of the center of the tropical cyclone will remain within the cone about 60-70% of the time. To form the cone, a set of imaginary circles are placed along the forecast track at the 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h positions, where the size of each circle is set so that it encloses 67% of the previous five years official forecast errors. The cone is then formed by smoothly connecting the area swept out by the set of circles.
Note: A detailed definition of the NHC track forecast cone is also available.
Bein German I googled that. I get the idea, but man, all that ammo and weapons will be hard to come by over here.
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Usually only the eye is actually a hurricane (winds > 74 mph). See the darker red-orange part of the current Dorian map. So a cone of possible paths of the eye is generally the same as possible hurricane locations. The storm is always much bigger though, which is why affected areas issue separate hurricane, tropical storm, and tropical depression warning areas
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A lot of people can’t leave. And we spend nothing on helping them do so before a storm. Spending 10x as much for rescue evacuation instead of pre-emptive evacuation is a government choice at least as much as its a choice by “the nitwits.” And victim blaming is never helpful
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This opinion kind of surprises me. Did you read the part where it shows the center of the hurricane rather than the outer edge, so people believing they are safe if they are outside of the zone marked on the map are mistaken?
That’s a little bit like putting the “do not cross” yellow line in the middle of the subway track and being surprised when people get hit. Like they were supposed to know the line was the point you were supposed to stand 10 feet back from.
But then I’m not really criticizing the map. Instead I’m criticizing the decision to use it as information for the public. The public need to know whether they should be preparing for a hurricane. Any map that doesn’t show that is a bad thing to show to the public.
Yeah, that’s the real issue. It’s just throwing out information that people can’t use. That said, knowing that you might be in a position to determine you have to evacuate three days from now is not exactly useless information.
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First, they’re not victims yet. The hurricane is 3+ days away. You’re two steps ahead but tripping on your laces.
Second, how exactly is it a government problem if people know a week in advance that they are likely to face a direct hit by a cat 4 hurricane and choose to stay in its path?
Take one example of people who truly cannot leave: the very sick who are in hospital. Most hospitals, especially ones in Florida, take hurricane warnings very seriously. You can bet that this very moment they are planning evacuations for people who cannot even move. They will be moved, because the people who can plan ahead are doing so.
Perhaps the others who are able-bodied should fire a few brain cells and do the same? Maybe think about their loved ones and elderly and help 'em out before this thing hits?
We see this every hurricane with able-bodied, intelligent, sentient beings choosing to stay and “ride it out” and then later, requiring rescue. What a complete waste. THOSE are the nitwits. Not the less-able. The less able need our help, hurricane or not.
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Just a guess: If you’d combine “probability of center” and “region of impact” into one graph, the area would be so large that far more people would flee in panic than necessary (e.g. clogging streets, binding rescue forces that are needed elsewhere). Overestimating the risk can be a risk itself.
As others already asked: If someone has a better idea to present this data, let us know. And IMHO anything blinky-flashy on a mobile device wouldn’t do, this infrastructure might be the first to go. Even today, “printability” should be a requirement for this kind of information.
Part of what I was trying to say earlier is that no one knows that information a week in advance. 40-50 hours is probably the outside limit.
My FN Browning is in my bugout bag. The Ruger Mini-14 won’t fit. 
Or go the wrong way. Several hundred people went south to avoid Andrew and wound up right where the eye hit.
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You have three to four days to deal with a weather event that changes constantly. The printing process alone can’t keep up.
TV and Mobile devices are key to keeping up.
By the way, the best hurricane info site I have found is Hayley Croft’s “Cyclocane”.
I still keep an eye on the storms because we have a lot of friends and family in Florida. If you have a site with better info, please post a link.
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I’ll give you half a point for precision. Correct, no one knows 7 days in advance that a hurricane is going to be a direct hit at a specific location. Your definition of a week and my definition of a week probably differ in intensity. To me, knowing something around 5 days in advance is basically a week. Well, a short one. But still, basically a week in advance, as opposed to two weeks or a month in advance.
At 7 days, a hurricane should be on news-connected people’s radar as a possible thing to deal with in the next week.
At 6 days, one can tell it may come sorta close by.
At 5 days, the probability cone narrows to ~500 mile range of where it’s going to landfall.
At 4 days, the cone narrows to a ~250 mile range
At 3 days, we pretty much know within 50 to 100 miles where it will hit.
At 2 days, specific watches and warnings officially issued.
At 1 day, get ready, clock is ticking to get out
At 0 day, start the generators…
All of that with the big caveat that much of a hurricane is not predictable. Harvey, for example, stalled on the gulf far longer than anticipated and in doing so, dumped much more rain than expected. So, include the element of unpredictability at each stage. Hurricanes suck rotten eggs. They really do. They aren’t cute or fun or something to “ride out.” Naw. They’ll kill you if you don’t watch out.
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nhc.NOAA.gov is pretty good, especially for the detailed watches and warnings, but Cyclocane is excellent, as you say. I also like the Navy site: https://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/TC.html
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But the current map says exactly the same thing if people understand it. If understanding the actual risk would be worse than not understanding the risk, then the information just shouldn’t be shared at all.
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I’m not so sure. I like to think I’m fairly smart, and here are some things I didn’t know
- The cone only predicts the center (I had assumed it was showing the entire area of high destructive potential)
- The cone is right only 60% to 70% of the time, aka it is wrong 30% to 40% of the time (I had assumed it was a much higher percentage)
I totally understood it was wider because predictions get less accurate as uncertainties pile up.
I think showing both those things at once would be confusing, but showing a map with either the current cone in red and a wider “damage area” in yellow seems unlikely to cause any significant amount of confusion (except maybe the first one or three times that style graphic is used).
I also think showing a color coded map showing how vast the area that the center could travel across wouldn’t be confusing…but it might paralyze people with panic. Like “my place is in the red zone, better GTFO…but my parents place is in light yellow, does that mean I should go there? Should I try to get a hotel in that mid-green area? I can’t even travel out to the unicolor section in the 37 hours I have left!” That might cause people that could have gotten out of the red area (even if only to a yellow, or mid-green) to decide to forget it and sit where they are. Maybe in bigger numbers than people in yellow areas would manage to get completely away given the additional information.
Putting both on a map though, that would be really hard and is more likely to cause confusion and analysis paralysis.
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It’s that storm surge, which can move inland as early - or earlier - as/than 24 hours before the eye of the storm crosses over a given land area. A storm surge dome of water created by low barometric pressure and pushed towards land by the wind and the waves. That’s what causes more destruction and fatalities than anything else by a hurricane.
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We’re going to need a new map!
Storm Surge, Wind Speed, Tides, Bird Scooter Danger Zones
People complained about a number of things with the iPod and later iPhone shuffle. Some complaints clearly recognized that the shuffle was random, but they didn’t like it, many complaints didn’t assert anything about the randomness of the shuffle. A very significant number of the complaints asserted that the shuffle wasn’t random because some undesirable and/or low probability event happened.
Those events include (but were not limited to):
-
The same song got played twice, root causes:
- N songs were in the play list, song N was FOO, and the play mode was repeat so a new shuffle is generated and song 1 of the new shuffle was also FOO
- N songs were in the play list, including more then one instance of FOO (maybe different live mixes, or maybe the library includes both an album the song was originally on and the same thing on a greatest hits, or the library includes multiple versions of an album, like the American and UK versions or US and JP versions because some versions have other tracks and the library owner is “really into that band”)
- two similar songs were mistaken as the same
- two similar songs were not mistaken as the same, but the human listening to them doesn’t think hearing two covers of the same song is random
-
two songs by the same artist were played in a row, because
- duh, that totally happens!
-
two songs from the same album were played in a row
- that happens too, especially if the play list doesn’t have songs from all that may albums
-
two songs from an album played in the same order as they were originally on the album
- yeah, that totally can happen. Every track (except the last) has another “natural order” track that can follow, the chances of any given one coming up is not super high (for a large play list), but the chances of one happening are actually pretty high!
-
they shuffled this playlist on some other day, and heard two songs in the same order then as just happened right now
- yeah, that can totally happen! Chances are actually higher than getting two tracks in album order.
- not only can it happen, people can imagine it has happened when it didn’t
People don’t really seem to understand shuffle. Or maybe they don’t understand “it isn’t what I want so it isn’t shuffle”. I’m not sure either of those has direct relation to not understanding hurricane maps, but maybe it does. I don’t understand people (although I do understand shuffling…and not so much hurricane maps apparently)
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^^^^^
This. We saw it with Hurricane Lane last year, which initially looked like it was following the same path and magnitude as Iniki, which devastated Kauai. Then for reasons, it stopped moving for 3 days about 100 miles off of Lahaina, then slowly fizzled. The most dangerous part? A brushfire that the hurricane’s fringe winds stoked; firefighters couldn’t get close enough to put it out, and the wind and rain made helicopter support impossible. 7 houses burned – in a hurricane.
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