| I know some people probably have an issue with including so much uncertainty, but I think there always needs to be some. "for now" "not a concern" can be interpreted by some to be enough, and perhaps it is for most people, but I heard stuff like that with some of the last hurricanes. I prefer avoiding language like that even with a "for now". I can remember one local station downplaying both more than I would have liked. On one, I think they weren't even live during the day, breaking into regular programming, when Helene was supposed to impact the area. Maybe it was the day before, but I think it was that day, like the national morning show that was on and then during daytime programming. (I switched to a station that was live for background TV while doing stuff inside) Then with Milton, the same station leaned more on it being rain for Florida with a chance of it being a tropical storm and either a hurricane or maybe even saying category one. I forget. On one day they even took out the watching the tropics text that had on the 7 day forecast, but that might have been on Thursday. It was on Friday that they were leaning more on rain I think and then over the weekend there is less local news. (sports rule the weekend) By Monday, when there is more local news again, it was a category 5. Obviously no one expected that, but I wish more uncertainty was given before the weekend. The GFS has at times been all over the place with this next area. It's not clear what is or isn't the same. Something might eject from the Central American gyre. There is often uncertainty there on the when question. And that impacts the whole track. Masters/Henson blog on it: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/11/a-november-tropical-storm-in-the-caribbean-is-now-likely/ I think the best thing for anyone to say is that it's unclear where it might threaten ultimately. If there is a run that hits a particular area maybe that local market might say something like things can easily change as they do, and have with the runs for this storm. Don't be panicked, just come back and keep watching it. I don't like to say something isn't a concern for a particular area, even qualifying it with a right now. It has to be watched. I wish more often it was left at that and that's it. I would say especially that's how it should be for a TV meteorologist on air. On social media I think they can be more technical with the info and maybe not have such an emphasis on the uncertainty as long as they still add it. I am more concerned about people who don't know the weather as much. Someone checking a meteorologist on social media, they probably know more. But casual viewers of the local news need that extra emphasis on uncertainty and I think in some cases that was missing with Helene and Milton in ways I have not previously seen in my area. I don't like it both ways. Overhyping something or not indicating uncertainty. On the uncertainty part of it though, I'm probably more strict than anyone else on that though. When I am watching the news and I hear something I'll say something out loud to my dad, like they shouldn't have said that. I don't know if I have gotten to be more picky on what is being said or if some are not covering things on TV as good as they used to. When a lot of people were without power, or could soon be, then I think it was more important than usual to focus on some longer range model runs as people might not have a lot of communication and might not be able to access info as much. So it was kind of unfortunate to have to talk about such far out things, but it was something people needed to be aware of in case they lost power for awhile and needed to be aware that something was out there. I think that has mostly passed. I kind of wish the local news would not pay as much attention to the long run models. I feel that is a change this year. Overcompensating perhaps in not warning people enough about the last ones on the station I watch mostly, but then talking about other things that are so far out there is no sense on getting people all tense about something else. This was well before the NHC was talking about this area. But that gets into, do you talk about something that some people on social media are panicked about? Or ignore it? I don't know. You can't say the people on social media are wrong and it won't happen, because there's that tiny chance that some run 10 to 14 days out might happen. Doesn't make the hypers right about hyping of course. Perhaps on some things though I've become too persnickety, lol. Not about hyping stuff, those people are crazy, but about the level of uncertainty I like to see. In a perfect world everyone would be responsible and understanding of the risks and uncertainty inherent with these systems.. But that world doesn't exist. |