"Sure, these organizations have inefficiencies, but this is like doing surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel, without bothering to look at the X-rays beforehand," Masters said."
Thanks, Larry!
I actually went to school with Jeff at the University of Michigan. He and 3 other guys, including me would often get together when we had a high threat of severe storms that afternoon, standing in front of this massive, 2 story long window in the Space Research building, facing southwest. Watching the cloud formations and severe storms(if they developed) and hoping to see a funnel cloud or tornado. Never happened.
Interestingly, this would be the exact WORST spot anywhere to be during a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning.
Jeff and I had another commonality. I flew into hurricane Gloria in September 1985 with the meteorologists from the Hurricane Center in one of their hurricane hunter airplanes, when I was a tv meteorologist at WEHT in Evansville IN.
However, Jeff flew into dozens of hurricanes, including Hugo in 1989
A flight through Hurricane Hugo, remembered 20 years later
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/a-flight-through-hurricane-hugo-remembered-20-years-later.html
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Larry,
With regards to the things people can do before a hurricane to prepare. I get that already. My point is not about that but what I can't see is any of the products, watches and warnings changing substantially with cuts that would change that.
I use all these products from the NWS more than anybody, anywhere except for fellow meteorologists. If I thought it was going to greatly impact those products we use, I would be strongly objecting.
The models are the models. They are run ON COMPUTERS that are automated.
Interpretations of the models and data don't get better by much if you have 10 people compared to 1 good person doing the job.
I don't see them cutting back on expert analysis from the Storm Forecast Center or Hurricane Center.
Think about it. I'm just one person and look at all the information that I can show here, including interpretations without being paid and maybe a couple of hours a day.
The computer models and computer generated products do most of the work. Sort of like the dishwasher and clothes washer do all the washing/work. We just load and unload it
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83844/
Probably the NWS is already run efficiently with no need for cuts, like you stated, Larry. But we shouldn't just assume that without scrutinizing.
Of any cuts, I would be the last person wanting them to be in this field. I'm just trying to be objective about a field here I'm extremely subjective.
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On your other comments. I already understand what people can do ahead of severe weather. The question/point is how cutting people will cause them to be unable to do the exact same things, the same way.
Let's be specific about HOW THE CUTTING will result in lost lives and property. What is the lost product or service that will cause people to not know to board up homes and put up sand bags or evacuate ahead of a hurricane if the same models are used to make the same forecasts with the same watch/warning criteria.
I use these models all day every day.
If it meant something like, no more hurricane hunters flying into hurricanes, then I would be squawking but I'm not seeing any evidence of that.
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The sort of waste that I would like to see eliminated from NOAA is their crazy bias supporting a fake climate crisis and fake green energy. Especially wind energy. They've been providing, biased, junk science regarding the hundreds of right whale deaths off the East Coast from the wind turbine industry, for instance.
Maybe they will straighten their act out, at the very least and we can stop treating CO2 as pollution instead of the beneficial gas that it is.
US Government Grants Wind Industry Licence to Kill Thousands of Whales, Dolphins, Porpoises & Seals
https://stopthesethings.com/2023/04/06/us-government-grants-wind-industry-licence-to-kill-thousands-of-whales-dolphins-porpoises-seals/comment-page-1/
As Constance Gee explains below the US government is complicit in what, once upon a time, would have been treated as an environmental outrage.
‘Take’ authorizations prove NOAA is lying about whale deaths".
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Utterly Pointless Slaughter: Offshore Wind Industry’s Whale Carcass Count Mounts
https://stopthesethings.com/2024/07/24/utterly-pointless-slaughter-offshore-wind-industrys-whale-carcass-count-mounts/
‘Absolutely, 100 percent, offshore wind kills whales,’ he says.
Early in 2023, Gerasoulis began researching whale deaths. That summer he started building a software system to identify any relationship between the dead whales and offshore wind survey vessels, which use loud blasts of sonar to map the seabed for the installation of offshore wind turbines and high-voltage cables.
He named the system Luna.
But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is responsible for protecting marine animals and their habitats insists there is no connection.
‘To date, no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities,’ said Lauren Gaches, NOAA Fisheries public affairs director shortly after Luna’s body was found.
Whale deaths had started increasing several years earlier. NOAA declared ‘unusual mortality events’ for humpback whales in 2016, minke whales in 2017, and North Atlantic right whales also in 2017.
The death count is now up to 534 for these species.
Wind farm developers started sending out sonar vessels to blast the ocean floor with high-intensity sound waves to map it for offshore wind farms in 2016.
But NOAA still denies any connection.
‘At this point, there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys or pile driving could potentially cause whale deaths,’ Katie Wagner, NOAA public affairs specialist, told DailyMail.com.
‘There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.’
