Expect the unexpected and prepare for uncertainty. Every summer, the reality TV show “Big Brother” locks strangers in a house with hundreds of cameras and microphones following their every move. However, this summerlong power struggle is not the only uncertainty of the season. Those who live in areas that experience hurricanes also deal with the reality of uncertainty every summer.
Hurricane Ian continued its temperamental travels to Florida last Wednesday and made landfall as a Category 4 storm. The last time a major hurricane impacted the Tampa Bay area was 101 years ago.
“Tampa being free from a major landfall since 1921 can be chalked up as least partially to ‘luck of the draw,’” Aaron Poyer, the program manager for the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, said in an emailed statement.
The National Hurricane Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) work in three areas to improve prediction abilities and use computer models to give key information to the public like approximating where the storm is going to be and when.
“The National Hurricane Center and other forecasters are really good at predicting things that are happening pretty soon — so we are pretty confident where a storm’s going to be in three days,” Alex Harris, a climate change reporter for the Miami Herald, said.
“No one really tries to hazard a guess for six days and out except for the computer models,” Harris continued.
When all of the computer model interpretations and predictions for a storm are plotted on a map, random lines connecting location points occur and intertwine, which has received the nickname “spaghetti models” across news outlets and social media platforms. Basically, instead of throwing one noodle of spaghetti on the wall to see if it sticks, the data given from the computer models throw an entire box of noodles and plot every possibility for the storm onto the map.
The National Hurricane Center has specialists who look at these outputs and determine which models are considered the most representative. Then, these models are combined into a consensus, which gives the scientists an idea of where uncertainty remains in the highly trusted models. The average of the reliable models is the best guidance on where the storm might be in the future, and a cone is put around it. However, the cone of uncertainty is not based on the spread of the models. It is based on past performance of the storm and only looks at the location in time and space of its center.
“We have so much more information right now about the structure of the storm and trying to convey that is harder because people don’t look at a big storm — they look at what’s happening at their house,” Dr. Frank Marks, the director of the Hurricane Research Division at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory for NOAA, said.
To understand how hurricanes form, think of the Pacific Ocean like a Starbucks with a drive-through, and a sea of cars connect the eager customers in need of a morning caffeine fix all the way to the Atlantic Basin. Therefore, at this Starbucks, the temperature of a drink order affects the climate conditions in another region of the world.
Because Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 until Nov. 30 each year, it is only offered as a seasonal drink option at this location. So, if you order a cold brew or iced coffee during this limited-time drink availability, you’re essentially making the ingredients for a hurricane to form in the North Atlantic.
But the Starbucks drive-through in the Pacific Ocean has weird operating hours and only makes drinks when every ingredient is in stock, so it does not give an option to order in advance. You have to get there when the espresso meets perfectly with the steamed foam, or if you want to put it back into meteorological terms, when the warm ocean currents and wind shear from the atmosphere combine to create a tropical cyclone, which is the generic term for hurricanes, tropical storms, typhoons and natural disasters of that kind.
“The changes we have seen in the hurricanes over the last 40 years have been dwarfed by the changes we’ve seen in human behavior,” Marks explained when describing climate change mitigation.
Climate is the expected average of what you will experience every day when you go outside, and the weather happens around that expectation.
“What I say about the climate problem is that they’re not going away — hurricanes are still going to be here — we need to make the best forecasts and provide the best guidance,” Marks said.
David Flesher, the main hurricane reporter for the Sun Sentinel, said that “most hurricane deaths actually take place after the storm has happened.”
Florida is still feeling the aftereffects of Hurricane Ian as the search and rescue continues. As of now, officials have confirmed that at least 76 people in Florida died due to storm-related incidents.
“The aftermath is the most dangerous part,” Flesher said.
