My Two Cents On Wednesday

This storm has a large footprint. There will be some snow from the Delmarva to Maine. South and east will have rain or a mix.

Back in Connecticut there will be plowable inches inland with a slushy, yucky mix on the shore.

gfs_namer_066_dom_precip_type

A snowstorm is heading toward the East Coast at the worst possible time, the busiest travel day of the year! Get set for your favorite TV liveshot: reporter interviewing angered passengers at the airport.

This storm has a large footprint. There will be some snow from the Delmarva to Maine. South and east will have rain or a mix.

Back in Connecticut there will be plowable inches inland with a slushy, yucky mix on the shore. It begins around breakfast and stays until dawn Thursday with the heaviest over by late Wednesday night.

Roads will suck. Airline schedules will be meaningless. Am I overselling it?

I don’t expect to see people stranded, but travelling Wednesday will be tedious and unpleasant at best. If you can change your plans, go for it.

East Coast/West Coast Difference

That has led to terracing. Row-upon-row of homes get ocean views because they’re built into hillsides.

IMG_3203_5788

IMG_3201_5786

IMG_3539_6124

IMG_3229_5814

IMG_3228_5813

IMG_3221_5806

We went whale watching yesterday. Not only did we get to see lots of sea mammals, we got to see lots of coast. By-and-large it’s very different from the East Coast.

From Florida to Southern Maine beaches are mainly the extension of a flat coastal plain. Not here. Because the West Coast is on a tectonic subduction zone, many spots have cliffs right down to the water’s edge.

That has led to terracing. Row-upon-row of homes get ocean views because they’re built into hillsides.

If we had snow or got ‘the big one’ this would be a major problem. Right now homeowners try not to think about it and spectacular views win the day.

I’m Studying For The Eclipse

The small “D” shaped area where the maximum annular eclipse will be seen is so remote, even for Antarctica, it’s predicted no one will watch it live! No one!

I’m studying up. I’ll be hosting a webcast covering the eclipse late Monday evening on slooh.com.

eclipse-path

Annular_solar_eclipse_April_29_2014An eclipse takes place late Monday night, my time. That’s early Tuesday morning back on the East Coast.

Academic. Neither place will see it.

The eclipse takes place Tuesday afternoon in Australia. They get a little touch of this annular eclipse.

Annular eclipses occur when the Moon is relatively close to the Earth. That makes it smaller in the sky than the Sun, allowing a small ring of the Sun to remain visible.

As eclipses go, this one just barely makes it.

Much of Antarctica and Australia will see part of the Sun blocked. SolarEclipse2014Apr29AOnly in a tiny region of Antarctica will see the full annular eclipse. There it happens with the Sun on the horizon for just 49 seconds!

The small “D” shaped area where the maximum annular eclipse will be seen is so remote, even for Antarctica, it’s predicted no one will watch it live! No one!

I’m studying up. I’ll be hosting a webcast covering the eclipse late Monday evening on slooh.com. We should have access to live video from Australia where, in some spots, over half the Sun will be blotted out temporarily.

It’s a good chance to rustle up a little scientific curiosity.

The TV Model Is Broken

I love television. I’m a student of the media. It was incredibly important in shaping who I’ve become.

TV’s model is broken.

There were seven channels in NYC when I grew up. Most cities had less.

No remote control. No DVR or VCR. You watched it when it aired. If two shows you wanted to see aired simultaneously–tough.

In 1960, Gunsmoke finished the season in first place:

1 Gunsmoke CBS 40.3 rating 65 share

That’s 40% of all homes and 65% of those homes where the TV was turned on!

Last week’s number one entertainment show was “Big Bang Theory.” It had a 5.1 rating.

In those more innocent days you had to be careful not to get hit by the falling bags of money! Not today.

Before WTNH was sold in 1985, Geraldine Fabrikant wrote this in the New York Times:

The jewel in the ABC-Capital Cities package is WTNH-TV, the Capital Cities station affiliated with ABC, that covers the New Haven and Hartford markets. Its 1984 net revenue was $24.9 million, and operating income was $14.6 million. That meant operating profit margins of 58 percent. During the past five years, the margin has never been lower than 58 percent, and it has been as high as 62 percent.

They took in $25 million at 8 Elm Street for an operation that cost $10 million to run!

Those days are long gone. Though the broadcast networks and their affiliates are still the dominant force, their audience is a fraction of what it was.

Technology has been the difference. The pie has been sliced into many more smaller pieces.

Whether they take advantage or not, most people are currently equipped to see shows without benefit of television. We’ve got computers and tablets and smartphones and they’re all very capable of video playback.

I knew Saturday Night Live was going to be good last night because I read tweets from the East Coast. Why did I have to wait to see the show? Only because it breaks television’s business model!

The same with this afternoon’s Cowboys/Redskins game. It wasn’t on in SoCal. I wanted to see it and did… don’t ask. Free and easy access to all the games breaks television’s business model.

We need local TV. We need local news and other local programming (scant as it is), but won’t have it for long unless TV stations find a new business model.

I can see a future where shows will stand on their own without a station or network. Netflix productions are a step in that direction, but why do you even need Netflix?

TV’s current model is broken. The more viewers realize it, the harder it will be to hold back the tide.

The Advantage Of Not Forecasting On-The-Air

I’m watching the Pats/Broncos and remembering winter. They’re not pleasant memories.

If I was still forecasting in Connecticut, I’d have been talking about Wednesday’s potential storm for days already. Fellow forecasters, I feel your pain. The forecast has vacillated like a bride-to-be on “Say Yes To The Dress.”

Even today no one knows for sure. I certainly don’t.

However, the models have begun to stabilize. The forecast solution has become more consistent run-to-run.

Wednesday looks like rain all across the East Coast. In fact, it looks like rain most of the way from Canada to Florida! Early Thursday the rain turns to snow, but by that time the storm’s moisture should be mostly spent.

In New York City the potential is there for enough wind to keep the balloons grounded Thanksgiving Day. No one wants that.

Here in SoCal it’s temps near 70&#176 and a slight chance for rain Thursday and Friday. Slight.

Respect For Hurricane Earl

I am surprised by the Hurricane Center’s forecast. The ‘out days’ center of the track is well offshore, though the Maryland shore to the Canadian Maritimes are all within the cone of uncertainty.

Radar — that was my first step this morning. I needed to check the radar from Saint Maarten. As I type this the southern eyewall of Hurricane Earl is touching the coast of Anguilla in the Caribbean. The eye is well defined on radar.

The Hurricane Center says the top winds are 125 mph. If that’s true they’re in an extremely small area. I usually feel NHC’s estimated maximum wind is higher than warranted. It’s all academic. You don’t need 125 mph to rip a Caribbean island to shreds!

There have been no official observations from the Anguilla airport since yesterday afternoon. In Saint Maarten just to the south winds are sustained at 33 mph with gusts to 53 mph. Anguilla is getting it worse.

At St. Thomas the wind is gusting to 49 mph. Earl isn’t there yet. The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico get their run-in later this afternoon.

These storms tend to wobble. They are not fully symmetrical. There is uneven friction from nearby landmasses and the interaction with other weather systems. This current path is north of where I thought it would be as recently as last night, but reasonably close.

Hurricane Earl is definitely a threat to the US East Coast. Will it hit? Too early to say, but it’s certainly enough of a possibility that I’m watching its every move.

I am surprised by the Hurricane Center’s forecast. The ‘out days’ center of the track is well offshore though all of the East Coast from the Maryland shore to the Canadian Maritimes are within the cone of uncertainty. How helpful is a forecast when it has to alert Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston? There’s lots of fudge factor still at work.

Based on the GFS past few runs I’d shift the track even farther west (left) than they have. I’m sure there’s a little “better safe than sorry” in my thoughts as well.

From the latest Hurricane Center discussion:

EARL IS FORECAST TO TURN NORTHWARD...THEN NORTHEASTWARD AHEAD OF A MID-LATITUDE TROUGH THAT MOVES ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES AND INTO THE NORTHEAST UNITED STATES IN 4-5 DAYS. THE TRACK GUIDANCE HAS SHIFTED WESTWARD AGAIN AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST HAS BEEN ADJUSTED IN THAT DIRECTION. THE UPDATED TRACK FORECAST IS NEAR THE MIDDLE OF THE TIGHTLY CLUSTERED GUIDANCE.

THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT NHC AVERAGE TRACK FORECAST ERRORS ARE 200 TO 300 MILES AT DAYS 4 AND 5. GIVEN THIS UNCERTAINTY...IT IS TOO SOON TO DETERMINE WHAT PORTION OF THE U.S. EAST COAST MIGHT SEE DIRECT IMPACTS FROM EARL.

There’s a full workweek of this still to come! I will become enveloped in the storm. Actually I already have.

Why My Blog Traffic Exploded Today!

A confluence of circumstances conspired to raise my totals. The first says a lot about the power of Google

On March 11, 2010 NBC announced this documentary would re-air. More details here.

My blog is my entertainment. I enjoy writing. I enjoy seeing how many people read what I write. Recently that number has been between 1,200 and 1,500 page views a day. Not too shabby, especially when you consider it’s never been mentioned on-the-air during our newscasts! Today I’m at 9,000 11,621 and counting!

A confluence of circumstances conspired to raise my totals. The first says a lot about the power of Google.

brokaw-google.pngI watched the Tom Brokaw documentary about Gander, Newfoundland on September 11, 2001 tonight (and wrote this about that remarkable doc). On a Saturday afternoon there aren’t too many people writing abut what’s on TV, but there were a lot of people interested in this documentary.

When I ‘publish’ an entry word is automatically sent to Google and its competitors. My pages are in Google’s index in minutes. Usually on popular topics I’m drowned out by more powerful websites. Today, if you searched for “Brokaw, Gander” this site was number one or two (it changed during the day).

I experienced this once before when I wrote about Ashlee Simpson’s lip sync debacle on Saturday Night Live. My East Coast entry was up early and pulled lots of traffic. As Sunday progressed and the story was picked up my search position kept falling–as you’d expect.

This Brokaw doc brought thousands of page reads for both the EST and PST showings!

The second traffic driver was an entry I wrote in 2004. A friend sent me a note about terrible storm damage in California. Attached was a photo of a deck chair on its side. It was pretty funny.

Today someone on Fark.com attached directly to that same picture with a link reading: “Tsunami damage photos begin trickling in, not for the weak of heart (geofffox.com).” I guess that was funny after Hawaii prepped for a tsunami that didn’t come.

I only ‘saw’ that traffic by accident. Since Fark’s link was directly to the photo it didn’t register through my normal counting mechanisms. It was only because of my checking on the Brokaw doc that it was caught.

Linking directly to a photo without linking to my site’s content is like running your house off my electricity! That upset me.
Luckily it’s easy to command this server to redirect photo traffic to the original entry.

They still get a joke and now a little of my site too. I can live with that.

By Monday my traffic levels will return to normal.

On the other hand, links from other sites plus Twitter and Facebook mentions will help Google think more highly of me. This is how traffic is built.

Hurricane Bill–Wide Right!

The surf will be angry. The beaches will be empty of bathers.

bill-sse-cape-cod.jpg

Hurricane Bill is down to Category 1 at the moment. I can see that in the satellite shot. The eye has become ratty. Convection is missing from much of the western side. Most importantly, it looks like dry air is getting in toward the center.

LARGE SWELLS GENERATED BY BILL ARE STILL AFFECTING THE EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. THESE SWELLS WILL CONTINUE TO SPREAD NORTHWARD INTO THE CANADIAN MARITIMES ON SUNDAY…CAUSING EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SURF AND LIFE-THREATENING RIP CURRENTS. – National Hurricane Center technical forecast discussion

Earlier tonight on Facebook Craig Allen posted some personal observations from Jones Beach on Long Island&#185 which was disappearing under the tidal surge.

Just got back from Jones. Not Jones Beach; Jones Ocean. THERE WAS NO BEACH! All the sand was COMPLETELY submerged under the ocean from West End to Field 6. The ocean continued under the boardwalk, splashing up from between the slats and flooded the g…olf course. Only the top 2 feet of the basketball hoops were visible. The bandshell was under 3 feet of water. Only the dunes prevented it from flooding the parkway. – Craig Allen, meteorologist

Without Long Island we’d be susceptible to all that Bill’s got. Of course that’s academic. Thanks for taking one for the team Long Island!

Offshore, NOAA’s buoys continue to see large swells even in areas without strong winds!

There will be plenty of video later today from Massachusetts. The surf will be angry. The beaches will be empty of bathers.

Close but no cigar for Bill. Connecticut gets a pass. He will be Canada’s problem now. We are happy to see him depart.

&#185 – Actually Jones Beach is south of Long Island on a barrier island called Jones Beach Island. This is one of those cases where what is true and what is commonly believed are at odds.

The Tropics Are Open For Business

After a non-existent early season the tropics are open for business. In a few short days we’ve seen Ana, Bill and now Claudette.

tropical storm bill sunday.jpg

My folks are on their way to Milwaukee tomorrow where my niece is expecting their first great-grandchild. Her first child too, but I’ll see it through their eyes right now.

In Florida where they live there is special preferred parking for great-grandparents.

OK, I made that up, but there might as well be! It’s the Florida condo equivalent of receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Anyway they fly out tomorrow. I called them yesterday.

“Get the hurricane shades rolled down.”

I’m glad they’ll be out-of-town.

After a nonexistent early season the tropics are open for business. In a few short days we’ve seen Ana, Bill and now Claudette. Ana fizzled. Claudette will cause problems on the Gulf Coast, but probably as a tropical storm of minimal hurricane. Bill is the big worry.

I am actually more worried about Bill than Claudette even though Claudette will surely make landfall while the track of Bill is nowhere near as well defined.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS APPEAR FAVORABLE FOR CONTINUED INTENSIFICATION DUE TO LIGHT SHEAR AND WARM WATERS. SSTS BEGIN TO RISE MORE SIGNIFICANTLY IN A COUPLE OF DAYS AND THE NHC INTENSITY FORECAST COULD BE CONSERVATIVE AFTER THAT TIME. ALL RELIABLE GUIDANCE SHOWS THIS SYSTEM EVENTUALLY BECOMING A MAJOR HURRICANE. – National Hurricane Center discussion

bill track sunday.gifI don’t disagree. And since this storm seems to be destined to turn parallel to the East Coast I worry–not just for my parents.

As storms get closer to land the ability to monitor them improves. Hurricane Hunter flights don’t go out into the mid-Atlantic. Buoys and remote sensors are limited in the middle of the ocean. Radar only covers a few hundred miles from shore.

This will not be my last entry on Bill.

Here Comes The Cold

Even without knowing meteorology this map is impressive.

cold-outbreak.gif

My friend Bob, who knows more about math and computers than any human safely should, created this loop to show the cold air moving into the Plains and toward the East Coast. The colors depict temperatures.

As he pointed out, earlier this afternoon there was a 50&#176 temperature difference between eastern and western Iowa.

Even without knowing meteorology this map is impressive.

No One Likes To Send This

I just sent this email to friends/family in Florida.

http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/hwrftc2.cgi?time=2008081412-invest92l&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation

A friend just sent me this computer run of the tropical nugget currently east of Puerto Rico. If you press “FWD” it will play. This would bring “Fay” to the Miami area Tuesday afternoon, then scrape up the East Coast for a day or more.

These early runs are notoriously flaky. Take it with a grain of salt. However, you’re getting this because I am concerned. You should begin any long fuse plans now, but wait a while longer before getting into full prep mode.

This would be a SERIOUS STORM, Category 3 or more.

Geoff

I hope the models are wrong.

Now It’s The Hurricane Season

My friend Bob, the meteorology professor, just sent me an email with not much more than this link. Half past midnight on Saturday. He knew I’d be checking the mail.

The Atlantic is open. Hurricane season has begun – even with no Atlantic hurricanes.

Yes, I know the season’s officially underway June 1. That’s minor league stuff. The real hurricane season is squeezed in from the middle of August to the middle of September.

For the past few days the GFS (a physics based, dynamic weather model) has been showing a strong, hurricane like storm, moving off the coast of Africa heading toward the states.

The GFS is not made to predict tropical weather, and it does so poorly. Still, when run-after-run shows the same thing, you look. They have at the Hurricane Center.

A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE IS LOCATED OVER THE FAR EASTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN ABOUT 300 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS HAVE CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION THIS EVENING. HOWEVER…CONDITIONS APPEAR FAVORABLE FOR GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM…AND A TROPICAL DEPRESSION COULD FORM DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO AS IT MOVES WESTWARD AT 15 TO 20 MPH.

Bob’s impressive model outputs are of the same storm, what looks to soon be Dean. These maps are different from my normal charts, but the bottom line’s the same.

Though I said the GFS has been forecasting this storm, it hasn’t been consistent with the long range path. A few days ago it took a sharp right, missing Florida and sailing close to shore, but off the East Coast. Another run had the storm moving into the Gulf and making landfall between Galveston and New Orleans. That’s a pretty big difference!

Obviously, we don’t have a clue yet, except this looks like Dean. And, it looks like Dean will be strong.

The next month will be busy.

Bad Weather In Florida Is Still Great

Last night on the news, meteorologists were raising the volume on this unseasonable cold Florida weather. “You’ll need a sweater,” one said. “The kids will want to wear coats to the bus stop,” added another.

It was in the 60s today. It was sunny. It was beautiful. It’s Florida. No complaints from me.

Our flight home is at 2:55 PM tomorrow. At 2:55 PM today we got our boarding passes. On Southwest, that’s how you get seated together.

It wasn’t until after the boarding passes that we considered leaving the house. Actually, before we left a friend of my parents came so I could explain how a photo book is made.

Here’s what I discovered. You can’t explain. It’s something organic which must be done to be learned. This isn’t to say she didn’t take copious notes. She did. But she’ll have to play around and ad lib to get anything going.

No matter what I said, it wasn’t going to be the whole story.

We left my parents’ condo and drove toward the beach. My parents are way out west, past Military Trail. The beach is straight down Boynton Beach Blvd to Federal Highway (aka Route 1) a quick jog to Ocean, and then over the Intracoastal draw bridge to Route A1A. We turned north toward Palm Beach.

I know this area well. I worked at 3000 South Ocean Blvd (A1A) in Palm Beach back in the late 60s/early 70s. It was a radio station located right on the beach. How stupid was I to leave that idyllic spot?

There’s been lots of new construction over the years, but much of what I remember is still here.

We drove up A1A past the very expensive, very little towns that fill the barrier islands along Florida’s East Coast. There were condos and houses – some immense monuments to conspicuous consumption.

I looked down at the rushing current as we drove over Boynton Inlet and onto Manalapan. For 35+ years I haven’t been able to not look at Boynton Inlet every single time I drove over it.

We turned right just past Lake Avenue, into the parking lot for Lake Worth’s municipal beach. This beach is actually an easement carved out of Palm Beach.

A few days of stiff breeze had whipped up the surf. That’s what I was expecting. It was my chance to take some surfer photos.

I found a place where a few other photographers had congregated and quickly developed a case of lens envy. That lens you see is a 400mm F4. It’s longer than my longest lens and captures a whole lot more light.

Most non-photographers are surprised to hear the lens is a few times more expensive than the camera it’s mounted on!

The laptop I’ve brought with me is pretty old and very slow. I’m hoping I posted the best surfing shots, but I’m really not sure. I definitely know they will be differently tweaked when I get home.


It was chilly on the beach. Helaine and my folks retreated to the car. I went down to the water line. Being there gave me a slightly different perspective and allowed my feet to go underwater at the tide continued to come in! Oops.

As I was getting ready to leave, I saw a cluster of birds hovering right at the shore. A man in a t-short was holding his hand out, a piece of bread between his fingers. The birds were thrilled to fight the wind and get the bread.

As long as we were down by the beach, we headed to the Banana Boat for dinner. It’s a seafood place right on the Intracoastal Waterway.

My seafood pasta was perfect.

Another Mention In Print

Wow – two print mentions in the past week. This time Joe Amarante of the New Haven Register called to ask about our lack of winter.

I’m not sure “alarmist crap” is be a phrase I’d use again for attribution. It was inelegant and crude. Unfortunately, it’s an accurate quote. Sometimes stuff just comes out.

I think writers, like Joe and Charlie Walsh at the Connecticut Post (who quoted me last week), have a distinct advantage over TV people. We need to haul our sorry butts to the scene of the crime. Newspaper people can just pick up the phone and interview a half dozen people in the time it takes us to drive to some far off little town.

Continue reading “Another Mention In Print”

What’s Up Hurricane?

Here’s a quote of a quote of a quote. I was reading Dr. Jeff Master’s weather blog this morning. He put numbers on the tropical weather of 2006.

In a word – average

The Atlantic was down. The Eastern Pacific was up. The rest of the world helped make the average… well, average.

Strong storms are up numerically, but experts now think strong storms were vastly underestimated in the pre-satellite, pre-radar, era. We were pretty blind back then.

Then, he quoted a recent statement from the World Meteorological Organization concerning hurricanes and global warming.

A consensus of 125 of the world’s leading tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters says that no firm link can yet be drawn between human-induced climate change and variations in the intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones.

In a statement issued in Costa Rica at the World Meteorological Organization’s 6th International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones, it was also declared: No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change. Tropical cyclone is the umbrella name for hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones.

The recent increase in loss of life and damages from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

In other words, if you build on the coast, you’re going to be hit when coastal storms come along. Period. End of story.

There’s no need to use global warming as a stalking horse to invoke fear. There will be devastating ‘big ones,’ because people have aggregated where big ones have always come in the past.

The Gulf Coast, from Florida through Texas, is alive with people. Same thing for the East Coast. Sure, Florida has been populous for a long time, but now there’s major development farther north in Florida and into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Even here in Connecticut… no, especially here in Connecticut, our shoreline is crammed with people, few of whom have heard of, much less remember the devastation of the Hurricane of ’38.

You don’t need to worry about ‘Super Storms.’ What Mother Nature naturally packs is bad enough already. You’ll see.