Hi Jason:
1) Agree
2) Agree
3) Agree

4) Ah, ya knew it was comin' - Disagree - but only from a scientific point of view. When you go on-air (except for a lost minute to correct the Anchor) you make a dedicated effort to give the best forecast that you possibly can. Every forecast can become a challenge - and its a challenge because this science is so new and so much remains to be learned. Why does one little tropical wave blossom into a Cat IV while another in what seem to be the same conditions does nothing? Obvious answer - the conditions are not the same, but we don't know enough about the atmospherics to always tell the difference. Okay, so what does all of this have to do with the seasonal numbers game? Well, when NOAA or Dr Gray or anyone else develops such a forecast, they do so with the same scientific intensity (or at least I hope that they do) that we do when we ponder the weekend outlook. When the numbers fail, it forces Gray and others to attempt to expand the science and improve the forecast - doesn't always work, but sometimes we get lucky and learn something new. When the weekend outlook fails I probably spend more time in trying to figure out why it didn't pan out than I do in actually making the forecast, but I just chalk that up to trying to learn more so that the forecast will fail less (I keep hoping that someday it might actually happen). But I certainly agree that the numbers mean nothing if you can't improve the forecast enough to tell if or where or when the storm will make landfall.

5) Tiny wave - 10N 46W - could get interesting in a couple of days (here we go again - another busted forecast

)
Cheers,
ED

Ed Dunham
Chief Meteorologist
The Boeing Company