Hurricane Dorian barrels toward the Florida coast, it has been testing forecasters trying to predict the exact path of what could be the most powerful Hurricane to hit the state’s eastern shore for more than a quarter-century.
Dorian’s erratic behavior has been particularly difficult to track. Adding to meteorologists’ woes are the many amateurs tracking the storm on their own and challenging the accuracy of expert forecasters.
Meteorologists have been surprised by Dorian’s slow pace, which swelled into a Category 4 storm on Friday night. It was inching towards the coast at 12 miles per Hours, and forecasters revised their estimated arrival time, saying its center would approach the coast on Tuesday afternoon, although strong winds could start thrashing Florida on Sunday.
On Saturday morning, The National Hurricane Center’s track for the hurricane has moved northward, with forecasters indicating that the storm may drift along Florida’s coast – rather than running inland – and significantly weaken before hitting land in Georgia or South Carolina.
The jet streams that push hurricanes toward Their destinations are relatively weak in this case, said Mike Brennan, who leads the Hurricane Specialist Unit at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. That means Hurricane Dorian may move more erratically, Mr. Brennan said that as it is more susceptible to the topography of the land it crosses over and even thunderstorms in its throat, posing a challenge to forecasters hundreds of miles away.
With With so little clarity, viewers armed with radar images, hurricane models and air pressure numbers are marching on the forecasters’ Facebook and Twitter pages and demanding more accurate information, challenging their predictions and sometimes even accusing them of misleading the public.
Only a few years ago, residents may not have even known a storm existed until it was close to landfall, but now they are watching formations in the Atlantic Ocean and scouring the internet for raw storm data.
“It used to be, ‘Hey, I’ve heard there’s a storm out there,’ and now it’s like, ‘What’s the cloud doing coming off of Africa ? ‘”Said Chris Smith, a meteorologist at the NBC affiliate in Panama City Beach, Fla.
Forecasters are working overtime to keep up with the intense demand for storm details, peeking at briefs as they feed their children breakfast and recording updates even when they are off the clock. They are dealing with probabilities but their viewers want precise answers to the same two questions: How bad is Hurricane Dorian, and where will it head?
“It’s like being a witness in a trial,” Mr. Smith said. “You get the same questions a million different ways.”
Mr. Brennan added: “The limitations of science run up against the demands of society.”
Some hobbyists have been following Dorian practically since it was formed about
“Everyone can be a meteorologist nowadays , and I love that, ”said Lauren Rautenkranz, a meteorologist at First Coast News in Jacksonville, Fla. “Just, we want people to latch onto a specific computer model and think of a forecast. Good guidance. ”
Ms. Rautenkranz said she emailed her colleagues this week to remind them to take a breath and not forget that 1, 200 More models of the storm’s possible path will be generated before it reaches the coast.
Sharon Coldren lives on St. John in the Virgin Islands said she was more prepared than some residents because she relied on maps and satellite imagery in addition to the National Weather Service.
“ We’re starting to get a little suspicious, so we’ll watch even more closely, “she said.
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Hobbyists and forecasters often look at much of the same publicly available data from the National Hurricane Center and elsewhere. But forecasters have often spent years studying atmospheric science, learning what affects storms’ movements and how to distill hundreds of models into reasonable prediction.
In recent days, expert forecasters like John Morales have turned to tools like Facebook Live to broadcast for longer periods of time, allowing them to share. more thorough information. The hope is that viewers will understand why pinpointing a hurricane’s path can be nearly impossible for more than three days before it is predicted to run ashore.
In
, before Hurricane Andrew, Mr. Morales sat in front of a bulky television set in the studio of the local Univision affiliate and warned viewers to prepare for a storm surge of up to 14 feet. His forecasts were fleeting, available to loyal fans only when electricity and television were on.
Now, Mr. Morales spends every free minute forecasting Hurricane Dorian online. On television, he works only in the Miami media market. On social media, he serves a robust following in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
He especially likes the ability to speak in detail on Facebook Live, he said, often in a T-shirt from the comfort of his Miami home. When he started broadcasting a few years ago, his wife would hold a phone and his computer screen as he pointed at images. He has since been upgraded to a desktop with a webcam, a large external microphone and software that allows him to draw on top of his models.
Constantly taking questions doesn’t mean Mr . Morales’s followers like his answers.
“People are always looking for a deterministic, definitive answer,” he said during a rare break from his appearances as Miami’s chief meteorologist on NBC News. affiliate and on his online streams. “And generally speaking, the world’s meteorologists live in one of the probabilistic languages.”
Mr. Morales has become something of a local celebrity meteorologist, a calming, reliable voice willing to follow the field’s questions and offer lengthy explanations for the dreaded weather to come.
“Sometimes people See social media as a place where there might be disinformation or some say hostility or sarcasm. I see it differently, ”he said. “I see it as a place where by answering one question, I can serve a thousand or thousands of people who have the same question.”
Irene Sans, a digital meteorologist for the local ABC News affiliate in Orlando, said on -the hourly storm updates are no longer enough for audiences.
“People are not going to wait until 6 or 11, ”she said. “Our job has become much more demanding.”
The criticism she faces is already pretty harsh, she said, when she predicts rain and viewers will not see a drop. But during a hurricane, it gets even worse.
She doesn’t try to get it.
“Yesterday I got a message saying, ‘This woman is so alarmist, ‘”she recalled. “I keep reading it. We’re talking about a Category 4 hurricane. If you want to call me an alarmist, OK ”
But most people, she said, appreciate up-to-the-minute updates, especially after the National Hurricane Center issues its regular advisories.
Mr. Smith, the meteorologist in Panama City Beach, said that while amateurs can be frustrating, their vigilance is a reminder that forecasters need to meet their viewers’ needs.
“The The only thing that changes on the weekend is I might not shave, “he said.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national news. He is from upstate New York and previously reported in Baltimore, Albany, and Isla Vista, Calif.@nickatnews
Patricia Mazzei is the Miami bureau chief, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. Prior to joining The Times, she was political writer for The Miami Herald. She was born and raised in Venezuela, and is bilingual in Spanish.@PatriciaMazzei•Facebook
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