'Gold medal forecast' of Irene's path saved lives, expert says

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44310738/ns/weather/

Irene made landfall Saturday morning at Cape Lookout, N.C. — a bull's-eye in the field of weather forecasts.
It hit where forecasters said it would and followed the track they had been warning about for days.


"This is a gold medal forecast," retired hurricane center director Max Mayfield said. "I don't think there's any doubt: I think they saved lives."

The current director, Bill Read, tried not to sound boastful: "In the big picture of things, it looks like it panned out very well."

Gotta love science.

We should send this info to the anti-science ReTHUGS

I cannot recall a more spot-on storm track. They had this thing down to inches.

Wonderful work by scientists.

years ago, they would have evacuated Florida once Irene hit the bahamas (if not before) - noting how good the modeling has gotten. (Obama Admin hired him away from Florida where he was the state emergency management guy).

Next area that needs to improve is strength estimates.

You can probably forecast a lot of things. But Ron Paul says it was so much better in the olden days, when a storm like this would have killed thousands. And then a bunch of volunteers could come together to bury the bodies, and they'd all get a ration of liquor to help them forget the grisly job they had just done, just like what happened at Galveston at the turn of the last century. It might sound bad, but the alternative is a bunch of central government planning supported by taxes, and there's nothing more horrifying than that to Ron Paul! Ron Paul hates taxes and government so much, he has a government job paid for by tax money. And before you accuse him of being a hypocrite or a nincompoop, let me just assure you that in his preferred scenario, Ron Paul wouldn't have been bending his back over a shovel, either. He's very consistent that way.

I remember when the hurricane forecasts had margin of errors of hundreds of miles. To get it down to 10 is amazing.

people are foolish and stubborn, and will only relocate when the TV goes hysterical on them. It would be nice for them to be perfectly honest with us and treat us as responsible adults, but honestly, some adults and alot of local politicians are not responsible.

I think the NY, NJ, CT governors were right to demand evacuations, because it's better than loss of life. And, it's not such a bad thing to practice on a bad storm for when we have a real catastrophe.

They practice for disasters in Japan all the time, because japanese civilians know it's in the interest of everyone's security. When we don't take care of ourselves, we might later need first responders to risk their lives to save us.

Personally, I would like to see us respond well to storm warnings. It's a little inconvenient, but that's too bad.

But they do a job too!