For those of you in the northeast you may have had Labor Day plans that a few days ago were altered or cancelled altogether. The reason for this was because the Tropical Storm/Hurricane Hermine (yes, that is the correct spelling contrary to what all the Potterheads out there are trying to say) was tracking to be over the area with high sustained winds and potentially damaging rains.
Yeah… not so much.
The storm fortunately turned early and headed out to see. There may be some coastal action, as storm surge and tides battle it out, but otherwise it was a pretty nice weekend.
My big concern about this is the fact this kind of alarm raised and the result reminds me very much of Hurricane Irene back in 2011. The warnings for that storm were very dire and included these graphics of lower Manhattan being flooded with water. In the end… it was a lot about nothing for the city, although other areas did experience severe flooding.
The following year when Superstorm Sandy hit… well they didn’t use those graphics of lower Manhattan flooding… but they sure as heck should have. For that matter, the damage was worse than what was predicted for Irene.
This is one of the dangers of getting a weather forecast wrong. It gives people a false sense that the next big storm to come through is also going to be a great day for a barbecue. It’s a tough thing to contend with, especially on the preparation side for the next storm, when a storm falls short of expectations.