hogrunr
(Weather Guru)
Sun Sep 07 2008 10:33 AM
Re: intensity forecasts for Ike will be a crap shoot

Quote:

Quote:

Central and South Florida is out of the cone. There is no chance of it coming here.




Until the storm... any storm is north of your location there is still a slight change, or 50/ 50 chance, of the storm hitting your location.

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 is a perfect example.
Hurricane Charley was forecast to hit Tampa and turned NE.
I could go on and on.

A Storm in the GOM or Caribbean requires a minimum of checking the Storms status and forecast every 6 hours. Regardless of whether you are in the Cone or not.

My personal opinion and not necessarily that of the Management or Administration.




I guess the question with this situation is, were these storms forecast to hit Florida? I know things can change, but the there is a HUGE difference in a storm making a freak turn and hitting Florida when it is forecast elsewhere, and the storm being forecast to hit Florida.

In other words, if Ivan and Charley were forecast to hit Florida, then that doesn't exactly meet the example that people are trying to make now when saying that Ike is still likely to go AGAINST the forecast and turn towards Florida.

Again, not saying it isn't possible, but I think there is a huge difference in what everyone is trying to make it into. This is not a 50/50 or even probably a 70/30, but more like a 90/10 chance of Ike following the path it's projected to vs. it hitting central or south Florida.