October 15, 2016

The Storm Reveals Itself

The low center is now within range of the coastal radar and is crossing some of the coastal buoys, so we know a great deal more than a few hours ago.  Here is the visible satellite image at 3:15 PM.   You can see the clouds swirling around the nearly clear "eye" of the storm located southeast of the NW tip of the Olympic Peninsula.


The 4 PM radar shows the swirl of some precipitation bands around the low center.

The latest observations suggest the storm is considerably weaker than forecast, with a low center of 970-972 hPa.  It is also moving faster than predicted, by 1-2 hours, and 50-75 km farther offshore.

These changes will lessen the impacts everywhere, but particularly over Seattle a and southward.   Winds will increase and get gusty, with some scattered power outages.  But this is not going to be a Chanukah Eve or Inauguration Day Storm in the central Puget Sound area.

Stronger winds (gusts to 40-45 mph) have now hit the Olympia region and will spread northward and winds have gusted to 70-80 mph at Destruction Is, off our north/central coast, and 50-60 mph at several coastal locations. 

Max gusts last 24 hours.

Expect the strongest winds in Seattle between 7 and 9 PM, with weakening after that.

90 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update Cliff. We lost power in our neighborhood in Olympia about 15:45 and it affects about 1000 customers. We'll go to our concert at the Seattle Symphony and see if it's fixed by the time we get back.

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  2. Omg! I just saw a leaf move a little on my patio. Back to my freeze dried food stocked bunker I go

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  3. Is there a way to overlay the models to the pattern the storm actually took to see which model was most accurate? Seems like they were all over the place, would be interesting to see why and how far off they were.

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  4. Cliff - I appreciate all your efforts at keeping us informed.

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  5. Where can I find that wind-speed map at the bottom of you post? Thanks

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  6. I think you mean Southwest of the Northwest tip of Washington State.... not Southeast... that would be devastating.

    Good job keeping everyone up to date.

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  7. I wonder if folks will be returning generators in the coming days then, or get angry at all the media hype,
    comparing to other catastrophic events. Guess it gives us something to talk about, after a benign summer, and lower wildfire occurances. A family member is stuck on an Island because of mid afternoon ferry cancellations, and maybe due to over-hyped excitement of the big one coming.

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  8. What about the San juans? My 83 year old mother, who lives up there, is a tad worried.

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  9. Not sure why I fall for these storm forecasts every time. It's the equivalent of clickbait. Ugh.

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    1. well, you're not wrong. but I think he actually believes his models though. Too bad they were completely off.

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  10. Thanks for all your dedication and hard work, Mr. Mass.

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  11. It's 5:30 in Renton right now and the leaves on our many trees are not moving...even a tiny bit. There is not any breeze at all let alone a strong wind. Since the BIG winds are supposEd to begin at 6:00, is it going to go from 0-60 in minutes? I'm disappointed. I really believed we would have a huge storm. Sigh.

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  12. Gusting at least 55 knots here in Sidney BC from the SE (5:30pm PT). Building and barometer is dropping all around.
    This website is an excellent resource and you've done a great job reading this unusual storm.
    Power should be down soon. Skies have been odd/beautiful all day and a vibrant rainbow appeared to the NE right before the wind really starting hitting us (4:30-5:00pm).
    Good luck all.

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  13. NWS now lowers max wind gust estimate in the Puget Sound area to 55mph. It's turning into an ordinary autumn storm. I'm sure the next Columbus Day storm with hurricane force sustained winds will hit when they forecast an ordinary autumn storm. So, who's looking at the models to figure why they occasionally predict the storm of the century, and as the time gets closer, it's the storm of the decade, and finally perhaps not even the storm of the year. -- will anything change now? Sudden deepening? It's 974 now, a bit shy of the forecast 950.

    Hope we don't start to get into a boy-who-cried-wolf mentality.

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  14. Thank you Dr Mass for your fine and educational work

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  15. Highest gust in Portland was 53 mph at PDX. Winds have diminished considerably now (6pm) and heavy rain is forecast.

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  16. Peak gust in Portland was 53 mph at PDX. Things are much calmer now (6pm) but heavy rain is forecast for this evening.

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  17. Real bummer!! This is the frustrating part of being a weather and storm lover. You spend 3 days model surfing only to get to game time and have it not quite turn out the way you were hoping. Had the low come in just 50-75 miles to the east, it would have been game time for the Metro. Probably better with all the foliage still on the tree's. Hopefully this is just the beginning of an active winter! Thanks for all the updates Cliff. ;)

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    1. I was really bummed out to weatherfreak. I was looking at the models too. Patiently waiting and nothing much here in maple valley.I'm hoping as well for an active winter. Some of our worst winds we've had here in maple valley and Enumclaw are mountain waves. Those east winds are intense and longer lasting. I will just keep waiting:)

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  18. Seems to me that the local news outlets are reluctant to downgrade (6pm)

    Starting to see some sustained wind in Bellingham

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  19. I'm with many others here, thanking you for your sane, up to the minute updates, minus the sensationalism.

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  20. I cancelled my party because of this storm. Now there's no action, no danger. We're destined to have boring weather in this region I guess.

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  21. I cancelled my party because of this BIG storm. Now there's no wind, no danger. I guess we're destined to have boring weather in this region

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  22. Thanks for the update! Here in Bellingham we're watching it just start to get gusty (6:30 pm) and wondering how strong it will get. Exciting as it is to anticipate a record storm, we'll be glad if it doesn't turn out to be all that bad after all.

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  23. 55 knot gust at Shilshole Marina just now.

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  24. 55 knot gust at Shilshole Marina

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  25. North of Seattle, Bellingham and Vancouver area??

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  26. Just saw some mammatus clouds above Kingston. Clouds were moving fast around these but these seemed somewhat stationary. They were very dynamic - almost looked like they were boiling and they grew in size and shrunk. I'll have video posted of them later.

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  27. Cliff, I think you meant the storm center is southwest of the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, not southeast of the northwest tip.

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  28. Maple Valley will see nothing but rain then considering its southern position.

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  29. All the electromagnetic chatter in towne scared it away. :(

    Monitoring King County EOC to follow the reports around town. 1830 started the deluge in Queen Anne, which soon hit Lake City, followed by the transformer blowing in Montlake at 1843.

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  30. Never again will i buy into this fear based forecasting. My mom and grandma pass higher wind speeds at the holidays. Academic Grade - F minus. Embarrassed to have even promoted the forecast to others. Fool me once.... Lights have not even flickered. Stock up. lol Bothell out.

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  31. Peak gust in Portland was 53 mph at PDX around noon. Lots of down trees in Portland but not as severe a storm as was forecast. We lucked out.

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  32. Basically calm at 7pm in Bellingham. The clouds are now moving slightly East of North which suggests the center is now to the north, which agrees with the imagery I'm seeing.

    I recall the action was really on the south side of the center, but that's out at sea. Is this it for Bellingham or is there some breeze still to come tonight?

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  33. Thank you Cliff! I linked to your blog earlier this week to help my neighborhood in Bellingham prepare for the storms. I deeply value your posts.

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  34. Not much yet at 7:30 in Bellingham. I live about 1.5 miles from the Bellingham airport, so use that as a reference point. Even though we are about the same distance from the water, the airport is more elevated and exposed to a direct shot from Bellingham Bay.

    I was looking at the reported wind speeds at exposed locations on the WA coast like Destruction Is. and it seemed pretty modest to me. Similar to what the top of Hurricane Ridge has been reporting.

    I feel like the news people cannot be relied upon to provide objective information. There is only one Seattle weather person I like and trust(RM). Most of the others seem more interested in hype and the big show. I was in Portland 50 years ago during the Columbus day storm and have been through a number of others in Portland as well the famous ones in Seattle.

    We live in a heavily treed area in Bellingham, so having objective forecasts is pretty important. I looked at the UW WRF-CFS runs you posted and it showed 50-55 knots at our location, so that got my attention. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will not be as bad.

    Yesterday's winds had about 6 hours of 50+ gusts. Hoping that this will not be any worse. It sounds like it will not last as long.

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  35. The European model was right after all.

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  36. The European model seems to have been more accurate.

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  37. Regarding those who are complaining about the earlier forecasts being proven incorrect - thank goodness. I find the ghouls at The Weather Channel and the local TV idiots here in Portland almost visibly disappointed that their big weather "get" didn't pay off. A sad commentary of our current culture, I believe. Always better to be forewarned and yet surprised in a good way.

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  38. Swan Songda. Close but no cigar.

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  39. Thanks for all of the blog updates and your efforts! It's certainly not your fault that we have difficult geography and limited models. The models get better every year, but the idea of predicting a truly mega storm days in advance, well, that's still something for the future, at least around here.

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  40. There are several power outages in BC.

    https://www.bchydro.com/power-outages/app/outage-map.html

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  41. The US model has been catching up to the European model, which was considered far superior in the past. The difference in predictions may be within the expected range of uncertainties for this very difficult problem. If the European model is still better, you can thank Congress for cutting the research budgets while the Europeans were willing to spend the money needed for continued model development. We can still thank the modelers and forecasters for providing us with reasonable estimates so we can plan for the worst and hope for the best. We got lucky this time.

    Jim Aries

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  42. Disappointed by forecast and lack of walking it back. I am worried about "cry wolf" factor. The next time, few will prepare. Cliff will you address?

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  43. Thanks Cliff for guiding us through this. It's been enlightening. As you said earlier. These things are hard to call

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  44. The European model is also the one that initially said this storm would make landfall at the mouth of the Columbia River, if I recall correctly. So, farther out, the other models did a better job with this particular event.

    People really need to learn how probability works. The lack of comprehension there is also why we have so much trouble discussing anthropogenic climate change (from both sides, really).

    We had some good breezes around Sumner from about 5:30 to maybe 7:30; but nothing out of the ordinary. I like stormy weather but dislike power outages... so I'm calling this a win.

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  45. Seemed to have disappeared for awhile however it is back with a vengence here in Sidney, BC. Strangely BWD's Latest Reports show a calm breeze in Victoria now and pressure rising. Still windiest in Georgia Strait North of Nanaimo with barometer at 972mb and dropping, gusting 60knots.
    This storm sure has a strange and unique feel to it.

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  46. Are climate models equally unskilled?

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  47. Are predictive climate models better than those used for weather forecasting?

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  48. Tahoma high school canceled homecoming tonight. I'm so bummed this didn't materialize at least here in maple valley.

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  49. Wow, this guy helped cause over a million people to shop for things they didn't need, and leave work early on Friday. There should be a way to hold these people accountable when they cause unreasonable panic and cause a major disruption to the entire region for the weekend, all so they get blog clicks.

    This reminds me of the Hurricane Rita evacuation of Houston in 2005 - over 100 people died due to the evacuation based on incorrect models and panic from wrong forecasts.

    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/8-years-ago-seemingly-all-of-Houston-evacuated-4839142.php

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  50. 9:50pm In Bellingham.... nothing but a little rain all day, hardly even a breeze. There was a little wind just now.. like I saw a leaf on the ficus shake... this "storm" was none existent.

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  51. Despite what seems to be a dodged bullet, I have heard from 2 different people today of trees that broke off near the top and fell (one in their yard; one on top of a parked vehicle). I'm in Kirkland. One of the trees was in Woodinville. One was in Mukilteo. Apparently the gulch along the Mukilteo Speedway also saw a lot of downed trees. So that did happen.

    Now all locals need to do is put the gear and supplies they bought for this storm, in a tub for the next one. Because there is always a next one. I expect to find a lot of camping gear in the thrift stores in 3-4 months.

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  52. We had about 15 minutes of strong wind here in NE Seattle, but that's all. Kind of a dud, but I'm glad we didn't lose power.

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  53. Thank you for keeping us so well informed!

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  54. still waiting... all is calm and quiet in Vancouver, BC. My co-workers mocked my preparedness for this big storm... I sure hate it when they are right... :/

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  55. That's it!I'm spent!
    The wind,it went.
    And didnt even stop to say,
    "Hello, I'm Songda.
    Can you come out to play?"

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  56. Boy, as a farmer in the interior NW of Whatcom County who depends upon forecasts, I have to say that this is the biggest blown forecast I have ever experienced. You began by painting a doomsday prediction that sent most of us in the farming community into a frenzy of storm preparation, taking down greenhouses, harvesting all of our fragile crops, then you backed off a bit, then you backed off a bit more, and then the climax--tonight--has been nothing of a storm. Nothing. Perhaps you should refrain from painting such doomsday scenarios so early, or practice up a bit before scaring those who depend upon you. This wasn't a costly storm at all. Rather, it was a very costly forecast.

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    1. "This wasn't a costly storm at all. Rather, it was a very costly forecast."

      Too true.

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  57. On the plus side, the warnings of Stormzilla made most of the traffic stay home from downtown, so we could get to and from our play with no trouble...

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  58. Actually, the Canadian model was more accurate than both the European and the G.F.S. model.

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  59. Well. That's that. Must say as weather non-events go, this one takes the blue ribbon. I don't blame anyone, per se, but I do wonder about the cause and effect of such a drastic difference between predictions and dire warnings, and reality.

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  60. NEVER AGAIN will i buy the hype. If it happens then i will deal with it, which has always worked for me in the past. Shame on the 'experts' who cried wolf. Listening to the maniacal Trump is sadly more justified than what i heard and then experienced from my local learned institution. i will check this site for any contrition from the alleged 'professors' of doom. After that, i will not return. What a joke.

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  61. I think people should just be thankful that the storm was not as bad as predicted, instead if criticizing the weather people. It does not matter if they had to be prepared. We should always be prepared. After all I and many others in California were praying for Oregon and Washington to be safe.

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  62. One very important aspect of Saturday's nonevent derives from the necessity to recast just about all meteorological phenomena as anything but normal. Here is the Ministry of Approved Thinking at work: "The science is settled." How many times have we heard that from the purveyors of junk science and apocalyptic rhetoric? Be prepared for an increasing frequency of missing the mark with respect to forecasts and climate trends. If you think the declaration that all Himalayan glaciers will be gone by AD 2035 and wind magnitudes over Puget Sound on 15 OCT 2016 are uncorrelated, then you're simply not paying attention. Not much doubt too this comment won't last long on this blog.

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  63. Thanks Cliff, love the blog. I find it extremely useful and accurate - although of course one has to read *all* the words.

    I'd rather over prepare than die.

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  64. Andreas Garamond said.....

    "Here is the Ministry of Approved Thinking at work: "The science is settled." How many times have we heard that from the purveyors of junk science and apocalyptic rhetoric?"


    No, this is not an example of "the science is settled" being "junk science". As with climate forecasts, a weather forecast, like any forecast where all relevant factors are not known, the science as we know it is settled in terms of "best known", framed in terms of probability. It is the old tired canard of what we see in hindsight is all available for the forecast that is the fallacy. Use of this fallacy indicates risk illiteracy, meaning that to you "settled science" indicates certainty. No it does not as anyone who is functionally competent in any risk environment will tell you.

    The real fascination is why the eventual certainty of hindsight ( feedback) can elicit such disappointment in just about anyone when a weather forecast fizzles. No forecaster (or media) ever claimed certainty, yet the audience always seems to expect nothing less to qualify as success. The recent near miss in Florida elicited the same attitude when returning evacuee's were heard to say "last time I'll ever listen to them" as they looked at their intact trailer park. No one ever said their trailer park WILL get totalled, they said it has a 50% chance, and the consequence to life was extreme. Evacuating is an insurance policy. Mitigating AGW is an insurance policy. It is strange (and irrational) that anyone demands certainty as a measure of value in forecasting risk. It is equally strange (and irrational) to be disappointed when we dodge the bullet.

    One answer to this puzzle is Dopamine. Dopamine surges in the anticipation phase. When there is no reward, the dopamine crash can be severe. Disappointment follows, along with the usual scapegoating of the convenient targets - government and scientists who never said what we bizarrely seem to think they did.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axrywDP9Ii0

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  65. As previously said, the responses in these comments demonstrate our society's severe lack of understanding of math and probability. It is tragic that so many are "angry" that they prepared for a bad event that did not happen or missed them. Even the relatively minor winds we did see caused power outages and downed trees.

    All forecasts, models, and prognostications have probabilities less than 100%. In weather, which isn't a true/false result, that means the severity and storm path varies. A forecaster must naturally include a wider area of effect to give room for a storm's probable paths. If you look at a hurricane model path, there's a widening cone representing this. This doesn't mean the storm will expand to cover that cone, it means the storm is likely to be somewhere inside that cone. Congratulations, you are the people inside the cone that the storm passed by. To blame the forecasters that the storm didn't hit you reveals your ignorance.

    I'm sure you will all be at the casino today, giving your money to the people who understand statistics.

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  66. Cliff, thank you for guiding the region through this event. I was also tracking the models from the very beginning and no one could have foreseen the final track, configuration, and strength of the low. It really did look like a historic storm a few days ago. I was thinking how rare it is that we try to predict a 2-3 hour window of potential high impact weather here in the Northwest. It goes to show that our models (even the Euro) are far from perfect when dealing with so many variables at this latitude.

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  67. Geez, people. Stop the complaining! Predicting weather, especially strong storms, is still one of science's most difficult tasks. It's amazing they are able to predict anything at all. If we only had another good drill so what? I don't want to hear your whining when the big one hits and you wern't paying attention. I'm glad so few people were negatively effected. Disappointed it wasn't as "exciting" as anticipated but I'll be more ready next time and hope everyone is safe.

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  68. I'm so grateful for your forecasting. I work in the insurance industry and we prepared for the worst. The fact that it ended up less intense than expected could have had something to do with the 24329298 different variables that make our weather harder to predict than people think it should. Your blog is awesome.

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  69. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  70. Perfectly crystalizing the hype, this storm should be called "Bombogenesis 2016".

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  71. Perfectly crystalizing the hype, this storm should be called "Bombogenesis 2016". I literally held my fetus inside so as not to give birth during the storm.

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  72. Wrapping up here in Bellingham. The winds did not really materialize with only one gust of around 50 mph at the airport. (This is not at all unusual). There is as much wind today as there was last night during the "peak" of the maelstrom.

    Perhaps a facetious name for the non-storm: BlowHard

    Just like false negatives, false positives have serious consequences. I think all this talk of a typhoon remnant and the 1962 Columbus Day storm (which I experienced in Portland) was wholly unwarranted and greatly inflated everyone's fears and concerns.

    The TV weather news are saying if it had just gone 20 miles further to the east, it would have been a disaster. I am skeptical. They point to exposed locations like Destruction Island. Those locations commonly receive intense winds even in modest storms. News coverage on fallen trees with lots of leaves and rot is a bit misplaced. It was probably the result of the double-low storm a day earlier, which was more intense and sustained.

    I also found anomalies on the NWS forecast pages. Some pages had 40 mph predictions here in Bellingham while at the same time the wind warning was saying 70 mph. I see that as very poor attention to detail.

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  73. Think of it as a fire drill. Thank you, Cliff! We prepped a lot more than we needed to, but it was a good thing. We still ended up without power on Bainbridge Island for 30 hours. All was fine--we don't need a generator for that short of time. We can live with a little inconvenience--it just might be good for us! My main concern was for those who truly depend on power like the elderly, or those dependent on medical supportive devices that require power. I thank God it wasn't worse.

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  74. Well said Clayton - 'a very costly forecast' and that you gave an explanation of how you were directly affected. I too have a job that is weather related as I handle the insurance claims that result and had gone so far as to contact insurance companies on the East coast to warn them of the certainty of the big storm based on what I formerly thought was the best source. Now I look like something of a fool, although they won't mind not having to pay the claims. I would not care that nothing happened, which it didn't, were it not for the comparisons to historic events. That is where I got sucked in as I saw, worked and lived the devastation from 1993 and 2006 storms that this was compared to. As I posted earlier, that will never happen again as I have now lost all confidence. This non event did not even blow the leaves that are still in the trees out of the trees. After the forthcoming 'explanation' of what went wrong I am gone for good.

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  75. While I understand people complaining that it was overhyped and those defending Cliff and Friends, what I don't understand is how almost everyone could get it SO wrong?

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  76. Wow. I haven't heard such anger about a potentially tragic weather event not being so tragic before. Sounds like some of you feel we should be able to hold the weather accountable for not doing what we thought it should. Pretty out there.
    There were pretty big winds here in Port Townsend. Not what was feared, mind you, but I'm thankful for that. I have no doubt the potential was there for a destructive storm. This blog talked about probabilities from the beginning. Someone taking the discussion of models as statement of fact is clearly not paying close attention to what they're reading, and should take responsibility for their own actions. Weather in our region is notoriously hard to predict.
    I appreciate the information and intelligent analysis provided by this site. I think I learned a bit about weather watching this play out. Thank you.

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  77. Yeah, I was promised extensive property damage, and when I got up this morning, just a few tree branches down. I'm so disappointed!

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  78. Might as well get my 2 cents in also.. As a farmer I rely heavily on Cliff's detailed forecasts. Thank you Cliff!!

    I think Cliff gave a very accurate forecast for my admiralty inlet location. Sure I spent a bunch of time prepping for a storm that never came... But he backed off twice, stating the storm was small and it would be hit or miss, then backing off further with quite accurate wind models. (Ateast for my location.)

    Your efforts, getting us all those updates on that difficult forecast, IS appreciated!

    Over 3 inches in the rain gauge last week, and winds gusting to 40 this morning near the Admiralty Inlet.

    (As a vegetable farmer, I must add that I do not support I732 carbon tax. Taxing local farmers producing food for local communities, will only give out of state/country farms the competitive advantage. Won't, importing more food from far away consume more carbon than producing food locally??? Where is the tax credit for Washington farmer's in the faulty I-732 ?? Want to help local farmers and reduce emissions? Tax out of state produce then! Not local!)




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  79. I think Cliff generally did a good job of communicating the probabilistic nature of this event, but he probably could have done more along those lines when the worst-case forecasts were in play 36+ hours before the storm.

    Having said that, anyone who fails to take the usual suspects (TWC, the local hype machines) with a BIG grain of salt either just crawled out from under a rock (welcome to the future!) or has turned naiveté into an art form.

    Common sense and hard experience dictates that the higher the stakes, the more important it is for you to do some due diligence. That's especially true if you had business interests or public safety concerns riding on these forecasts.

    By "due diligence," I mean spending an hour or two learning how to use and read forecast models. There are dozens of sites that provide access to model output; many are very easy to use and well-equipped with tutorials and analytical tools. That learning process should include a quick review of the traditional sources of error (e.g. convective feedback in the GFS) and typical skill level of the leading models - GFS, Euro, NAM and perhaps UKMET or Canadian. Look at the model runs yourselves, assess the spread between the models, compare output from different model runs to see how they're evolving, and above all use the ensemble runs to get a VERY easy to interpret look at the uncertainty in a given run.

    You don't have to be a PhD to use these tools. Heck, you barely have to be literate.

    You're still free to rant about hype-mongering TV weatherghouls - they deserve it. Some of them are an embarrassment to their profession. But judging from the other comments on here, some of you lost a good chunk of money buying into a bogus forecast. The data you needed to make an informed decision was there all along; you just chose not to take advantage of it.

    Honestly, admitting that you let it happen isn't a great look for anyone involved. I might just keep it to myself and resolve not to get hoodwinked next time.


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  80. I very much appreciate this post. There are many tools available to the general public but most of the public relies on what our news outlets provide us, especially with the term "AUTUMN BLAST" plastered all over our screens including a scrolling live update on most channels. Being a Seattle restaurant owner, this hype not only disappoints a northwest weather fanatic, but also hits the pocket books. Almost all of our reservations cancelled leading up to the 5PM-9PM window of the storm and I can only imagine the hit that every other Seattle area restaurant took on the busiest dining night of the week. The media should've been quicker to provide an downgraded update when it was know. I hope the media will take some sort of note on what kind of reaction this missed forecast caused and its effect on local businesses.

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