Hate Mail

[TexasMetBlake]

So here goes:

First, this past weeks Winter Storm was a successful failure by many accounts. I've never seen such aweful model projections nor have I ever seen such hate mail pour into work---one telling my ''boss" that he needs to go back to weather school immediately and demanded an apology letter to this persons kids. The successful failure means we certainly got a Winter Storm but completely different than what was forecast and the warm air aloft that went unseen had the NWS on thin ice.

First, there is no mistake that the Winter Storm Warning verified for the entire area...all the way to the Valley. However, you could have counted the number of snowflakes on one hand across the entire Houston area. I don't need to explain to you guys what happened. Most of you are pretty well versed in meteorology. However, I think it is a strong statement that Houston MUST have an upper-air station. Interprating data between Coprus and Lake Charles just doesn't cut the mustard. I suppose it only made sense that our temps at 850 were below freezing. Corpus was -6c and LCH was +6c. Intuitively, we should have been at 0...or close to it. Forecasters assumed that even if we were a few degrees above freezing, that evaporative cooling would have lowered our wetbulb allowing for widespread snow. It never materialized.

It should be noted that this was a VERY significant cold blast...eclipsing last year's cold snap and making February the 3rd coldest start in our cities history--running a departure of -17 for the month. Incredible! Also:

-this winter storm produced the worst ice storm for Houston in 14 years (since Jan. 1997)
- gave us our first below freezing high in 14 years (Jan. 1997) **though last year, we hit 33 for 10 min. before dropping back to freezing at bush**
- gave us nearly 4 days in the 30s at IAH.
-had the most below 28 degree days in a row since Feb. 1989.
-caused over 1,000 accidents in the Houston Metro (800+ in the Houston City Limits alone)

While it did not snow, it was certainly significant. After completely blowing the forecast, I think it makes a strong statement for an upper-air station in Houston. If you think that the on-air forecasters just kinda took a 'eh, whatever' attitude, you'd be mistaken. We have received a bunch of hate mail and scornful letters from hurt children and upset parents. I myself love to see snow. I was just as upset as anybody. But to all the parents out there who are hatters, before you call us a liar, just keep in mind that you have been screwing with your kids heads for years. Yeah, that's right years. Guess what kids, so we 'lied' about snow. But there's no Santa Clause either. Oh yeah...that's right...no tooth fairy or Easter Bunny, either.

[Ptarmigan]

Well said. NWS Houston did say frozen rain was possible.

[C2G]

Are you in your 20's, possibly late teens?
Stop pouting and swallow your pride a little. It was a monumental flop, yes I said flop, as far as the predictions for snow go.
Over and over I read the predominant precipitation type would be SNOW, no doubt.
Granted, it was a major winter event, but people in the Houston area hear the word snow and get snow fever.
Be content that you get a few disgruntled emails. I flop in my job and find myself in court defending actions that I only had a few seconds to make.

[amandamarie01]

CC, I agree with Ptarmigan, well said.  

When I woke up Sat morning I looked outside hoping that a miracle had happened in the hour I slept and of course, nothing.  My first thought was of the conversation I had with my 4 yr old as I tucked him in the night before & the promises i made of snow when he awoke.  I was heartbroken thinking of the impending tears, then I thought of all of you - the ones who use their skills & talents to do their best to predict something that is unpredictable. I can't even imagine what you all were feeling.   Shame on me for making promises on things that cannot be controlled and shame on these other parents who place the blame on you.

Thank you for taking time away from your families and your homes,  providing information on event such as this so that I can keep my family & my home safe.

[txflagwaver]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

[jeff]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

But Ike's surge was always forecast to be on the extreme side...one should not have and should not focus on teh SS scale for storm surge prediction. The forecast for the SNOW was simiply wrong the forecast for Ike's surge was not wrong at all.

[Paul]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

But Ike's surge was always forecast to be on the extreme side...one should not have and should not focus on teh SS scale for storm surge prediction. The forecast for the SNOW was simiply wrong the forecast for Ike's surge was not wrong at all.

I strongly disagree!
It was wrong Jeff, the call for evacs were to late. I know... I was on the island when the surge was coming in Friday at 9am.....I literally saw the surge come over the road and rise on my feet. The city of Galveston had no idea what they were dealing with....the SS mulitplier for Galveston is what a 1.8...The officials get there info from the NWS.....so to TXflags point its not an exact science.

[jeff]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

But Ike's surge was always forecast to be on the extreme side...one should not have and should not focus on teh SS scale for storm surge prediction. The forecast for the SNOW was simiply wrong the forecast for Ike's surge was not wrong at all.

I strongly disagree!
It was wrong Jeff, the call for evacs were to late. I know... I was on the island when the surge was coming in Friday at 9am.....I literally saw the surge come over the road and rise on my feet. The city of Galveston had no idea what they were dealing with....the SS mulitplier for Galveston is what a 1.8...The officials get there info from the NWS.....so to TXflags point its not an exact science.

You need to go back and read the NHC and NWS statements prior to Ike...the forecasted surge especially within about 48 hours was pretty close to what happened. A forecast has nothing to do with evacuation calls, that is done by local govt and I can assure you that on the NWS conference calls that the local folks were being briefed on the potential for the surge and its depth. The evac decisions for Ike were slow in some cases, and it had nothing to do with the forecast for the surge.

[jeff]

[quote="Paulquote="txflagwaver"]Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

But Ike's surge was always forecast to be on the extreme side...one should not have and should not focus on teh SS scale for storm surge prediction. The forecast for the SNOW was simiply wrong the forecast for Ike's surge was not wrong at all.[/quote]


I strongly disagree!
It was wrong Jeff, the call for evacs were to late. I know... I was on the island when the surge was coming in Friday at 9am.....I literally saw the surge come over the road and rise on my feet. The city of Galveston had no idea what they were dealing with....the SS mulitplier for Galveston is what a 1.8...The officials get there info from the NWS.....so to TXflags point its not an exact science.[/quote]


You need to go back and read the NHC and NWS statements prior to Ike...the forecasted surge especially within about 48 hours was pretty close to what happened. A forecast has nothing to do with evacuation calls, that is done by local govt and I can assure you that on the NWS conference calls that the local folks were being briefed on the potential for the surge and its depth. The evac decisions for Ike were slow in some cases, and it had nothing to do with the forecast for the surge.[/quote]

You can also read the HGX AFD's from Wednesday before landfall and it clearly states the potential for early water level rise on the coast. People, EMC, the media never really focused on this aspect, but it is there and was stated well before any impacts were onbserved on the upper TX coast.

[unome]

Galveston first came into the cone of error on Tuesday, 11 PM - here's Ike's graphics archive http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2008/IKE.shtml

The Public advisories, found here http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2008/IKE.shtml were predicting 3-5' of surge in the Thur 7 AM update by Franklin - by Thur at 10 AM Franklin's update was predicting a whopping 20' of surge. It looks like sometime within those 3 hrs they went from "this is going to be bad" to "you might all die if you don't leave".

The Mayor & Co Judge called for a mandatory evac effective 9:30 AM on Thur, Sept 11th http://www.guidrynews.com/story.aspx?id=1000011870 Voluntary evacs were in effect before that time

Landfall was 2:10 AM Sat, Sept 13th, Tropical Storm force winds started hitting around advisory # 46 per the wind history graphics.

HGX' Ike page: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/?n=projects_ike08

You can find all the emergency announcements for Ike from Guidry here: http://www.guidrynews.com/default.aspx? ... ouncements

It would be cool to have an Ike thread stickied on the hurricane part of the website

[wxman57]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

First of all, there is no such thing as a "category x" storm surge. The Saffir-Simpson ranking isn't even part of the storm surge calculation. Ike was a large Cat 2. Larger hurricanes, regardless of SS ranking, produce a larger storm surge. A larger Cat 1 could easily produce a larger storm surge than a small Cat 5. Don't use SS for calculating storm surge.

On Wednesday morning, it was quite clear that our area could be very hard hit. Our forecasts mentioned a storm surge of 18-25 feet into Galveston Bay Friday night/Saturday morning if Ike moved inland near Freeport as was currently forecast. Fortunately, Ike moved inland well up the coast of Freeport near the eastern end of Galveston Island. This spared Galveston Bay from Ike's highest surge. Unfortunately, it didn't move far enough up the coast to spare your area.

Looking at NHC public forecasts, I don't see any mention of storm surge on the TX coast until Thursday morning, Sept. 11th when the mention a coastal storm surge of up to 20 feet above normal tide levels. By that time, though, the setup tide was already cutting off evacuation routes along Bolivar. The local NWS office would have been issuing statements before then concerning local surge potential. Jeff may have some of those forecasts archived. I didn't save any of those as they didn't come to my email.

Bottom line is that the extreme storm surge potential was mentioned from at least 2 days before landfall (earlier in our forecasts). I remember watching the (then) Galveston mayor's failure to issue evacuation orders that Wednesday morning and yelling at the TV "you idiot!". No one should have been surprised by the eventual outcome.

[Ptarmigan]

First of all, there is no such thing as a "category x" storm surge. The Saffir-Simpson ranking isn't even part of the storm surge calculation. Ike was a large Cat 2. Larger hurricanes, regardless of SS ranking, produce a larger storm surge. A larger Cat 1 could easily produce a larger storm surge than a small Cat 5. Don't use SS for calculating storm surge.

On Wednesday morning, it was quite clear that our area could be very hard hit. Our forecasts mentioned a storm surge of 18-25 feet into Galveston Bay Friday night/Saturday morning if Ike moved inland near Freeport as was currently forecast. Fortunately, Ike moved inland well up the coast of Freeport near the eastern end of Galveston Island. This spared Galveston Bay from Ike's highest surge. Unfortunately, it didn't move far enough up the coast to spare your area.

Looking at NHC public forecasts, I don't see any mention of storm surge on the TX coast until Thursday morning, Sept. 11th when the mention a coastal storm surge of up to 20 feet above normal tide levels. By that time, though, the setup tide was already cutting off evacuation routes along Bolivar. The local NWS office would have been issuing statements before then concerning local surge potential. Jeff may have some of those forecasts archived. I didn't save any of those as they didn't come to my email.

Bottom line is that the extreme storm surge potential was mentioned from at least 2 days before landfall (earlier in our forecasts). I remember watching the (then) Galveston mayor's failure to issue evacuation orders that Wednesday morning and yelling at the TV "you idiot!". No one should have been surprised by the eventual outcome.

Galveston dropped the ball on that one.

[unome]

Ike was a Cat 2 hurricane...with a Cat 4 storm surge. I lost everything....so....what am I going to do, sue the models?? Demand an apology from the NWS?? It's WEATHER. It's not an exact science.

First of all, there is no such thing as a "category x" storm surge. The Saffir-Simpson ranking isn't even part of the storm surge calculation. Ike was a large Cat 2. Larger hurricanes, regardless of SS ranking, produce a larger storm surge. A larger Cat 1 could easily produce a larger storm surge than a small Cat 5. Don't use SS for calculating storm surge.

the Saffir-Simpson scale didn't change to "Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale" until 2009/2010, in part due to Ike, so at the time of Ike, surge was linked to scale, at least in the mind of most people listening to sound bites during the evening news:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... icane.html
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/ ... urric.html

I always liked watching Steve Lyons during hurricanes, he really stressed all the factors of a hurricane, not just wind.

there's a link on HGX' Ike page for Archived Multimedia Briefings Prior to Ike's Landfall, but unfortunately, it leads to a "page not found" error. It would be great to be able to go back and watch/listen to them

[wxman57]

the Saffir-Simpson scale didn't change to "Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale" until 2009/2010, in part due to Ike, so at the time of Ike, surge was linked to scale, at least in the mind of most people listening to sound bites during the evening news:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... icane.html
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/ ... urric.html

I always liked watching Steve Lyons during hurricanes, he really stressed all the factors of a hurricane, not just wind.

there's a link on HGX' Ike page for Archived Multimedia Briefings Prior to Ike's Landfall, but unfortunately, it leads to a "page not found" error. It would be great to be able to go back and watch/listen to them

It's true that the Saffir-Simpson scale has been incorrectly linked to storm surge for many years. That's unfortunate. Many years ago, forecasters attempted to relate a particular storm surge for southeast Florida to a Saffir-Simpson category. Southeast Florida is not very surge prone at all due to the deep water just offshore (Gulf Stream passes close by). Unfortunately, these early associations became a part of the Saffir-Simpson scale for everyone in all areas. With the recent major storm surge events (Katrina, Rita, Ike), we've finally had storm surge purged from the Saffir-Simpson scale, although it may take generations for people to stop associating a particular storm surge with a hurricane's Saffir-Simpson classification.

What does determine storm surge height?

1. Size of the hurricane's wind field, particularly the hurricane force winds or greater. The radius of maximum winds may play the biggest part in the generation of a storm surge. Ike, Katrina and Rita (and Ivan) had huge wind fields.

2. Right up there with wind field size as far as being a major contributor is coastal bathymetry. A hurricane striking an area with shallower water will generate a much larger surge than one striking a coast with deep water offshore. Shallow water offshore can nearly double the height of a storm surge. Bays and river inlets can also serve to nearly double the height of a storm surge. The most vulnerable areas of the U.S. due to the shallow water offshore are the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts (think Katrina/Rita) and the Tampa, FL area. Fortunately for Floridians, Ivan hit a part of Florida with very deep water offshore (Pensacola). If Ivan had struck farther west where Katrina hit, then it would have produced a surge as large as Katrina's on the MS Coast.

3. Angle of impact - a hurricane striking the coast at a 90 deg angle produces a larger storm surge than one striking a glancing blow. But this effect is not nearly as great as the top 2 items above.

4. Speed of movement - a slower hurricane will produce a little higher surge than a fast-moving hurricane