How good was the forecast? Was the forecast communicated effectively? Why did some people choose not to evacuate? What can we learn from this storm before the next hurricane strikes?
Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Feed | Omny Studio | All Of Our Podcasts Hurricane Idalia became the eighth major hurricane to make landfall on the Gulf Coast in the last six years, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its path. On this week's episode, the Lee Weather Team looks back on the storm to discuss what stood out to them the most.
Idalia is now a hurricane and heading toward Florida. Learn more about hurricanes and severe storms on Across the Sky Learn about hurricanes on the Across the Sky podcast! Hear previews of this year's season, stories from storm hunters and listen to episodes about recovering from weather disasters.
And of course, right off the bat, our thoughts and prayers are with all the people trying to recover from this storm. Now, obviously, lots to discuss here. But to start, guys, let's just go around the horn and talk about the first thing that stood out to you about Dahlia. Sean, let's start with you, because you were doing a lot of updates on this storm for our Carolina properties.
But, you know, it's tough. You know, you're looking at just this blob of clouds in the Yucatan Channel and you're thinking 36 hours. This is going to be a major hurricane. That is not a forecast you can make 15 or 20 years ago with any kind of confidence. So for me, I'm especially happy with how far we have come in intensity forecasting in the last five or ten years.
But, you know the damage did not feel like a category one at the Jersey Shore. So it's just more of a broader picture for me. You know, with this, you know, can we get to a place, you know, is a safer symptom scale the best way to do this weather bell, which is known for their weather models, has put out a criteria by proprietary criteria to model these kind of storms with categories.
And where landfall actually happened, landfall happened at Keeton Beach. And the first forecast was picked to make landfall just ten miles west of Keaton Beach. And that is remarkable how good that track forecast was five days out. And there wasn't a whole lot of shifting. One thing, if you're comparing Italia to Ian, we did see that shift in the track forecast from north to south.
Now ultimately making landfall because it went through an eyewall replacement cycle right before landfall as a Category three to reach Category four, which is higher than what the models were indicating. So I think, you know, from a forecasting perspective, since we're still useful as meteorologists, the models are just a tool.
Name? Like what name are we going to come up with next? I think like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. It's like, Well, I mean, fortunately it's an international name with the World Meteorological Organization comes out these nameless. And so it's not just English names. I believe it's English, Spanish, French. Are those are the three. Those are the big three.
Of course, there are certainly been exceptions. Andrew certainly stands out as a major hurricane. That was the first storm of the season. But it just seems like oftentimes we get a lot of little baby storms. If you want to call them that. Storms that are out in middle Atlantic don't hurt anyone. And so we it just so happens that we often hit the ice storm when hurricane season is peaking.
And I think there's a pretty good chance that it's going to be retired, not as devastating a storm as in overall the economic impact, the number of lives lost. Fortunately, it looks like it going to be lower. But still, I mean, the images coming out just still overwhelming. You can just see like, you know, there's again, average we see after every major hurricane landfall.
I had a friend of mine who lives in Saint Petersburg, and he had he says he's lived there since 2017. He says the worst flooding he saw on his street in Saint Petersburg. And one of his neighbors said they lived there for like 23 years and that was the worst they had. And they had the whole street was covered and it was about anywhere between 6 to 18 inches, which isn't you know, six inches isn't going to get to your house, but 18 inches good.
There were a few reports like there's a storm in the Gulf that was it was like ship reports and they didn't know exactly where it was going. So the fact that we can track these things with satellites, keep an eye on we have planes flying out and getting the latest conditions, the the computer models that we have now gotten so good at forecasting where these things are go.
You're watching the Weather Channel and something stood out to you. Yeah. So, you know, I've got on another screen, I've got the Weather Channel on and I've been watching Cantera do this thing ever since I was an undergrad back in the and the day when I said in, in the 19 something something and look I can talk. He is great.
I mean, and to look to his credit, Cantor, he didn't say a bad thing about this guy because this guy, it was fine, right? He was fine. And he did what he thought was right. But he was only two or three feet of water away from probably not still being with us. So I think we've done a very good job at timing and intensity of the storm.
You've talked about hurricanes with the public and the people say, well, I've been through a hurricane and they might have, but they didn't go through the eyewall. So they don't think it's that bad. You know, obviously, we all know that area around the eye, the eyewall is where it's the worst. And if you go through that, you're not going to forget it.
And this storm was a great example of how there are impacts well beyond the cone. Look at what happened in Clearwater Beach in Tampa and San Pete. You know, everybody, you know, at first there was the possibility that, yes, maybe it would hit there. But pretty early on they were removed from the cone. It's like, okay, look, Tampa and Clearwater, they get lucky again.
This is what you need to be prepared for. That still seems to be the big challenge. You know, we've been talking about communication forever, really, and I think Katrina was the maybe the genesis of a concentrated effort for those in the weather community to really hunker down on the messaging, you know, as far as evacuating and people not evacuating.
We've done all that. You know, we're advanced enough where we can evacuate, you know, when we're told to. But it is a tough choice. It's a personal choice. I mean, it is. It's it is it's tough for for a number of people. I understand that. Yeah. The other thing with me thinking about Katrina, think of the the economic situation in a lot of those areas.
They know the storm is coming, but they don't have a good idea of exactly what's going to happen. And then we get into the other reasons of why people even another reason that comes up is people. You know, there are shelters that open up for these storms, but they're concerns about what's available in those shelters.
Maybe that's what we need to do better off. Yeah, I agree. I think the I think the communication of a storm approaching is obviously not what we're lacking on any of this. I think everybody's well aware of that. I think it's just as you all touched on, I think it's just people thinking they can ride it out and just the unknown.
So many more people feel secondary impacts. Not the worst of the storm. They're still building impact from the storm, but not the worst. And sometimes we get so caught up in how bad is it going to be at this one specific spot we forget to like keep remembering, especially in the national conversation. I think, you know, at the local levels, there's a little bit different conversation.
It is amazing. Those people were not even seriously injured. From what I gather. They were injured, but not seriously. And the fact that they even survived is remarkable. So we sometimes forget about the tornado threat with these hurricanes, too. Again, so much focus on the storm surge, on those strong winds with these hurricanes. But don't forget, usually these hurricanes generate tornadoes as well.
And sometimes being low isn't good and sometimes being high isn't good either. You know, if you have balls going on at the same time. So it's a game, like I said, sometimes a multi impact event. Otherwise, that's all I have here for, for the storm. Yeah, I think this is just a great conversation to have, like getting a group of meteorologists together after a storm like this and just having a conversation and bouncing ideas off of each other.
There. First, gas field is just better because they they put more resources into it because the European Center only has to do one kind of market. Whereas here in the states, you know, we have the global forecast system, we run the triple R, there are all these different resolution models for air dispersion and pollution dispersion. So I don't want to be one of these people.
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