Hurricane Predictions and 5G...Concerning

[Sailing Ohm]

Hello,
Has anyone else in the USA/Caribbean/ wherever been amazed at how completely inaccurate the Hurricane Prediction has been this year? I live in S. Fl (have my whole life) on my boat at anchor and follow the hurricane season pretty close and it seems that the National Hurricane Center, even in their less than 48hr predictions, has been drastically wrong on every single storm this year and there’s been quite a few. As far as I have noticed their 3-5 day predictions might as well not even exist.
I’m reminded of the adage, “ even a broken clock is right twice a day”. These supercomputer models are basically only right on their runs when they have fresh dropsonde data.
The most recent example is This latest storm, Zeta, which as of writing this, all of the models and prediction had moving north towards Cuba for the next day or so has in fact gone South. The GFS was even wrong on its initial run today about the location of the storm. Seriously that’s just nuts. How did a satellite date based supercomputer not know where a hurricane was?

I was wondering if any folks in the Pacific have been noticing an “off” year for hurricane/typhoon prediction.

Last year I read a few articles about 5G cellular and it’s effect of hurricane prediction and it seems to me that the warning was very just. Officials from NOAA and NASA had warned the implementation of 5G would bring forecasts down to 2-3 days and that appears to be hopeful at best.

I guess what I am saying to boaters and anyone who lives in a coastal area is that ensure you have a good hurricane plan for where you are! With such dramatic inaccuracies there’s no guarantee your move/evac out of the cone will actually matter.
What I am asking myself is are we willing to sacrifice weather prediction to have more data per second? Yeah the internet is great but when the hurricane wipes out your house, well perspectives change.

Here’s a link to one of these article:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.orl...outputType=amp

[denverd0n]

Sailors and people living in the hurricane zones won't like it, but I think a substantial majority of Americans would say, yes, we would sacrifice the accuracy of weather forecasts for more data per second. It's the world we live in.

[gonesail]

inaccurate is one way of putting it. the NHC has routinely exaggerated wind speeds on every storm this year. in addition to naming every low pressure system in the Atlantic and calling it a hurricane. is this to prove to us sheep that hurricane seasons are getting worse?

[Nicholson58]

We live aboard in the eastern Caribbean June to November. Hurricane prediction is pretty good there. The closer to the mainland, the more variation you will see.

[Sailing Ohm]

Originally Posted by gonesail

inaccurate is one way of putting it. the NHC has routinely exaggerated wind speeds on every storm this year. in addition to naming every low pressure system in the Atlantic and calling it a hurricane. is this to prove to us sheep that hurricane seasons are getting worse?

Yeah that’s not right at all...in fact it’s been the opposite. For the majority of storms, I’ve noticed the next day measured wind speeds have actually been greater than what was forecasted the previous and that trend continued for most of the storms life.

And not ever low pressure system has been called a hurricane, only those with wind speed greater than 64knots.

I was hoping for a serious discussion with any other informed weather nerds out there not a antigovernment probably semi-veiled political rant.

[Dsanduril]

Hmm, my work in Louisiana has been affected by Sally and Delta and both sets of predictions have ended up pretty much spot on at three days out, and pretty darn close at 5 days. Both of those hurricanes made landfall within 12 miles of each other and right on the predicted track through Cameron parish. That's the only two to which I have paid detailed attention.

[sailorbobdeb]

Sally came ashore in our AL Gulf Coast area. Family in LA had zero issues. Maybe you mean Laura if you're referring to SW LA? They couldn't get Sally right for projected landfall or wind speeds.

[contrail]

Hmmmm. I also live in the Eastern Caribbean and had remarked to myself how accurate things had been. The margin of error over a given lead time has gotten a lot smaller, over the years. And, as I follow the storms, I haven't found much reason to change my opinion. You DO know that the official forecast is a blend of many different models, and that the US model (the GFS) has been tuned and re-tuned, over the past years, to bring it more to the accuracy of the Euro model, but they haven't quite got there yet? The official forecast takes things like this into account. Not just the raw data. That is the human skill that is involved. It is also true that the center cannot be fixed by satellite alone and takes flights through the storm to accomplish.



I had not read of the possibility of 5G influence, and would like to do so. Can you link? 5G gets blamed for a lot, these days! Thanks

[wiekeith]

Originally Posted by contrail

I had not read of the possibility of 5G influence, and would like to do so. Can you link? 5G gets blamed for a lot, these days! Thanks

+1, I can't wait to see the theory behind that one

[out42]

+2 for getting some facts (strange though they are) please on why 5G has any effect on hurricane forecasting.

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by gonesail

inaccurate is one way of putting it. the NHC has routinely exaggerated wind speeds on every storm this year. in addition to naming every low pressure system in the Atlantic and calling it a hurricane.

BS. Wrong on both counts.

And as far as tracking goes, it's actually gotten more accurate. So they predict lower Texas coast, and it comes in mid-coast. Or it's a category four, instead of a three? I have a bigger concern that people get complacent because they rely on forecast that says it's coming ashore 150 miles north of them, and therefore don't prepare.

The one thing the NHC has gotten wrong historically is there estimate of the number of storms in any year. For years, they have been calling for more active hurricane season. This year they got it right!

[wiekeith]

Originally Posted by wiekeith

+1, I can't wait to see the theory behind that one

OK, just done some reading, there 'might' be some truth in it. In a nutshell, the frequency band allocated for satellite water vapour monitoring is the 23.8GHZ band. The band allocated for G5 is the 24GHZ band. Concerns are that out-of-band G5 equipment could interfere with the satellite band.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by out42

+2 for getting some facts (strange though they are) please on why 5G has any effect on hurricane forecasting.

One of the key wireless frequencies earmarked for 5G millimeter wave networks (24 GHz band) is very close to, and has the potential to interfere with, the frequencies used by microwave satellites, to observe water vapor.

According to NASA and NOAA testimony, they could interfere to the point that it delays preparation for extreme weather events.
Acting NOAA head, Dr. Neil Jacobs, told the House Subcommittee on the Environment that based on the current 5G rollout plan, our satellites would lose approximately 77 percent of the data they’re currently collecting, reducing our forecast ability by as much as 30 percent, and reducing hurricane track forecast lead time by roughly 2 to 3 days.

[hlev00]

The misleading piece is that it is only the high band 5g that uses the frequencies discussed as interfering with water vapor detection. There are, so far, very few of these cells so I don't imagine they are interfering with this years data. If there has been any actual reduction in forecast fidelity, it would seem to have to be coming from somewhere else.


It is hard to imagine that the 5g high band would ever be deployed widely enough to have a material impact, but that's just a gut feeling.

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by sailjumanji

BS. Wrong on both counts.

nobody said anything about tracking errors!! for me an active season was 2004 when 3200 people died. 2020 has been a fairly quiet season with no major storms coming ashore. pointing your finger at hurricanes in the open Atlantic or Pacific is just that. not to say LA and AL were not hit by storms. one man's narrow opinion that I assume you disagree with.