There's a tropical cyclone in the Eastern Gulf of America. The folks at NOAA are forecasting the system will change from a northwesterly track to a westerly track. With close proximity to land, and shear, they are forecasting a reduction in tropical storm strength over the next few days, and most of the rain south of the system....if it doesn't degrade into a trough. The final track, at this time, will take it along the coast to Southeast Texas, where it will come ashore and cross Texas.
The NOAA folks summarize all of this is a text forecast advisory, and it can be read in about a minute. The Weather Channel folks take about 48 hours to show a summary of all the model tracks, pay high salaries for their meteorologists to pontificate, and have entire crews on different beaches to interview those that want to have their faces on television. It's expensive, and they're using resources provided by NOAA, but there's money to be made. It's weather porn, and leads to experts that not only help increase the anxiety, they continue it on their social media posts. If you pay close enough attention, you'll realize you not only need to panic, you need to go spend close to a thousand at Walmart and gather supplies you'll eventually throw away in January.
Toilet paper doesn't go bad.....
ReplyDeleteI hope to see pictures of weatherporn stars struggling to stand upright while the trees nearby refuse to sway.
Much of it is theater. Locally, after one hurricane, Geraldo was forced to find a ditch to wade in to get the shot he wanted. He was on the dry side of the storm passage, there was little rain, and the guards at the Louisiana/Texas border wouldn't let him venture down the road toward Cameron.
DeleteNeed rain here . . .
ReplyDeleteWe're a little short, and if the seasons behave as normal, we'll have some hot early weeks in August without rain. Then, we'll start the slow process to cooler weather, with some gnarly fronts.
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