The Washington Post says that we are in a record drought for major Hurricanes, and that Sandy was not a hurricane at landfall.
Sandy was not technically a hurricane at its NJ landfall
Atlantic hurricane season begins Sunday: Will record streak without major hurricane landfall end?
Using their Sandy classification, I have updated the US hurricane frequency per president graph. Obama has had half the hurricane frequency of any previous president, and one tenth that of Grover Cleveland.
They are correct. This is wonderfully refreshing honesty from the MSM.
Cue the alarmist howling in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
Obambi is hoping for a change in his hurricane output. By my calculations he needs 9 major hurricanes to hit the US just to catch the next lowest president before he leaves in disgrace.
I lived through that storm. It was a classic and very gigantic merger of cold/warm storms which we call Nor’easters. These eat up beaches in winter at a terrifying rate and I said back then, this storm is a harbinger of colder weather.
It is Bush’s fault … he stole all of Obama’s hurricanes 😉
Darn it, now I have to clean of my screen and key board again. And I just got finished cleaning it after reading Pointman’s evasculation of W.Connolley.
Mr. Obama has fulfilled another of his promises; the planet is clearly healing, and this report proves it. There is still much to be done, however. The third world needs to be deprived of fossil fuel energy, North American oil needs to be diverted to the Chinese, and taxes on energy need to be imposed to ensure electricity prices skyrocket here in the US. Most importantly, the deniers need to be shut up and persecuted so the Messiah’s work can progress unimpeded by those who ignore settled science. All hail Gaia’s humble servant, Barack.
The problem with the ‘drought’ of hurricanes is that the public’s perception of ‘normal’ is now effectively zero hurricanes–meaning that with the next Cat 3 storm, Obama and the Alarmists will point to it and say that it is due to global warming etc. It arguably would have been better to trend along ‘average’ storms per year. One big storm to hit a now much-more developed Miami and the Dems will make a huuuge play for CO2 control. We all need to point out this drought and do exactly what Steven does brilliantly–remind everyone of past weather/climate conditions and events.
Good point. It seems to be the case that folks have short memories as far as the weather is concerned.
I intently watched Sandy develop as it narrowly missed me to the north. It was educational watching what was a big storm get swallowed by a larger North American storm system and disappear.
More interesting than the storm itself was what people said in the aftermath. Relief was agonizingly slow and sometimes destructive, and some of my friends, to my great surprise, found a way to blame the failures on the Republicans. They had to suffer through a lot, so I don’t blame them.
Also, the flooding in NYC was ascribed to higher sea levels caused by global warming, which at most could have contributed a couple of centimeters. As with New Orleans, much of the damage would have been prevented by having a program of regular maintenance and occasional upgrading of the sea defenses.
And, yes, it was not technically a hurricane at landfall but it had developed out of a hurricane, so it’s a matter of where the arbitrary lines of classification fall. Alarmists can surely claim that there has been a huge upsurge in “Frankenstorms”! Rhetorically, it might be easier to deal with hurricanes.
The NY folks want it called a hurricane for insurance purposes.
It doesn’t need to be a hurricane for insurance purposes. Property insurance policies reference “named storms.”
Sandy might have has barely sustained hurricane force winds at landfall. Since it was of tropical origin, I am sure it would have been considered a hurricane in the past. The whole subject about transformation into an extratropical system is basically an angels on a pin kind of topic. As Hillary would say, it doesn’t really matter.
Thoughts:
1. The term “Superstorm Sandy” is intended to obscure the fact that Sandy was only a tropical storm.
2. The NHC formula for reported wind speed: Reported Wind Speed = Actual recorded wind speed + 15 m.p.h. The fastest winds actually recorded from T.S. Sandy made it a middle of the road tropical storm not anywhere near hurricane strength. There were no tropical storm force winds reported from 2014’s “Tropical Storm” Andrea, the only named storm to make landfall in the U.S.
3. Given the angst about T.S. Sandy, NYC would go apoplectic in the event of an actual hurricane.
Ugh. “Tropical Storm” Andrea was in 2013, not 2014.
Technically, the WP is wrong. The US hasn’t quite hit the longest period on record, which stretched 3,316 days, from August 11, 1860 to September 8, 1869. Set your calendar for November 22nd, 2014, which will break the record.
No wonder GDP growth is low. No natural disasters to stimulate demand. ~Krugman