Accuweather says NHC is much less confident than they are

[Mike Smith]

Folks, this is getting ridiculous. AccuWeather is a competitor of mine, but let me point out the following facts regarding statements made in this thread...

"AccuWeather has no accountability..." Wrong! There is far more accountability in the private sector than in the public sector. If you don't please your clients, they discontinue paying you. Period.

Secondly, it is not the "government's" money, it is OUR money. We [all of us] are entitled to use the data, model output, etc., in any way that we wish. If we can make a profit, great. We generate more potential money for the NWS and research by paying more income tax.

Third, [paraphrasing] "AW should be cut off from the data for criticizing the NWS." Isn't this a free country? Should you be cut off from using the highways for criticizing the service at the DMV?

If you feel strongly, write a letter to Dr. Joel Myers. But, personal attacks on AW personnel are not constructive nor helpful.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I blame it all on upper management. I am sure those guys are treating the mets like puppets, telling them to self promote as much as possible - So, I really can't blame the mets. Boiling it all down, I am sure Accuweather pays their on-air mets quite a bit more than what the NWS pays - making it a real attractive offer. In addition, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the on-air mets had non-compete agreements and contracts stating terms of employment (length of time, etc.).

It's all a business, and a business with heavy competition. Quite frankly Accuweather is doing a good job in that aspect, it's just too bad they don't focus on the MET aspect.

EDIT: Just seen Mike Smith's post popup and he is absolutely 100% correct. As I said, it's business... I also see a few personal attacks here, making you guys no better than the management at Accuweather (those who attacked).

 

[Anonymous]

Not suprised Accuweather would bash NHC since they are literally on a mission to destroy the NWS and all government weather services and in turn provide them to you for a fee.

 

[Anonymous]

Folks, this is getting ridiculous. AccuWeather is a competitor of mine, but let me point out the following facts regarding statements made in this thread...

"AccuWeather has no accountability..." Wrong! There is far more accountability in the private sector than in the public sector. If you don't please your clients, they discontinue paying you. Period.

Secondly, it is not the "government's" money, it is OUR money. We [all of us] are entitled to use the data, model output, etc., in any way that we wish. If we can make a profit, great. We generate more potential money for the NWS and research by paying more income tax.

Third, [paraphrasing] "AW should be cut off from the data for criticizing the NWS." Isn't this a free country? Should you be cut off from using the highways for criticizing the service at the DMV?

If you feel strongly, write a letter to Dr. Joel Myers. But, personal attacks on AW personnel are not constructive nor helpful.

Of course it's our money and I don't want any of mine going to subsidize Accuweather so they can go on and try and destroy the Weather Service and then try and turn around and charge me for it.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Actually, they'd already changed the wording once when this article was posted. Here is a screengrab of the original:

 

[Anonymous]

What is really useless is Joel Myers and his ilk.

Hopefully, he will eventually run out of desperate mets willing to work in his met sweatshop, and he'll go under. It would serve him right for being such a prick. Without his ilk, the public/private partnership would be so much better than today.

 

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Mike Smith
Third, [paraphrasing] \"AW should be cut off from the data for criticizing the NWS.\" Isn't this a free country? Should you be cut off from using the highways for criticizing the service at the DMV?

Of course they shouldn't be cut off (although it would be kind of nice to drive home a point to those bastards), but what should happen is that the director of the weather service should come out, explain the differences between these two graphics, point out how misleading it is for them to use an old graphic for comparison, and then tell them to go straight to hell. NWS has been mollycoddling these petulant children at "accu"wx for years now, and it needs to stop.

 

[mikedeason]

I have time and again defended the private sector's role in meteorology and I certainly don't believe NOAA is above mild and civil criticism. But for Accuweather to come out and call an NHC product "useless" drops any pretense of professionalism and shows the true intent of Joel Myers, that is, to display government weather services and forecasters as incompetent bureaucratic boobs in order to make his own company look better. All this in order to squeeze NOAA into being nothing more than a data collection and dissemination agency for private weather services.

I am a libertarian as far as my political beliefs go, yet I feel that the NWS/NCEP team is one of the few government agencies that give the taxpayer one hell of a return on their tax investment everyday.

I believe that Joel Meyers owes NOAA and the NHC nothing short of a formal and PUBLIC apology for their poor selection of words.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Anonymous]

I agree completely, Mike. The number I have heard is that it costs each taxpayer somewhere on the order of $2.50 a year to fund the NWS. Hell of a lot more bang for your buck than accuwx.

 

[Pat]

Looks to me like AccuWeather just extrapolated what the NHC was already forecasting. Kind of hard to consider something useless that you yourself pay so much attention to, AccuWeather. What a joke!

It is also very insulting to the tropical experts at NHC. AccuWeather should make a public appology to NHC employees, and make certain it remains on their site for at least a week!

Just a little note...Joe Bastardi said on Fox, 5 or 6 hours ago, that Rita would go down as a worse hurricane than Audrey. Time will tell I suppose.

 

[Anonymous]

Looking at some of the obs this morning, it appears the western half of the 90% or greater probability of hurricane force winds in the AccuWeather graphic above will not see hurricane force winds. This includes the all-important greater Houston metro area. I don't think we will be hearing about this stat from AccuWeather.

 

[John Massura]

I believe it was one short month ago when Katrina was just north of the Florida Keys, NHC had a 3 day forecast just south of southern MS, while Accuweather had an "extreme risk to life and property" bullseye over the eastern Florida panhandle. Granted, this was still 3 days prior to landfall (graphic available on request, since this is a Rita forum).

That said, it is PR's job to sell the company, and they may or may not be intimate with the operations part of the company. I'm not saying this is true for AW, but it can maybe explain these outlandish claims.

Finally, the NHC product is EXPERIMENTAL. That's a bad move on the part of AW in my opinion. I agree however though that NHC's percentages do seem low. If there were probabilities within xx miles of a point, the probabilities would seem more accurate, but for these new experiemental products, they seem to just be straight percentages.

 

[Benjamin Sipprell]

Originally posted by Pat
Just a little note...Joe Bastardi said on Fox, 5 or 6 hours ago, that Rita would go down as a worse hurricane than Audrey. Time will tell I suppose.

Yeah, now into the morning hours Mr. Bastard-i has been trying to switch focus from Rita to what's out there right now ... oooooo ... he knows damn full well he messed up when yesterday he was all about the storm plowing straight into Galveston and Houston and the possibility of strengthening ... ranting and raving about devastation, destruction, billions of dollars ... yeah nice going smart guy ...

Meanwhile he joins in with Fox News ranting and hyping how gas prices will explode into the $5 range and that supplies will be low all over the nation ... then he puts in the extra edge of fear noting Rita could loop back and do this all over again ...

Then there's the stupid Fox questioning ... e.g.: asking rescue personnel if gas prices will go up ... yeah, smart line of questioning. I'm not getting into that.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by Benjamin Sipprell
...he knows damn full well he messed up when yesterday he was all about the storm plowing straight into Galveston and Houston and the possibility of strengthening ... ranting and raving about devastation, destruction, billions of dollars ... yeah nice going smart guy ...

It seems to me quite a few members on this board made a mistake as well...

The guy is only doing his assigned job - and the job isn't to say "well, I think it MIGHT hit here"... The public (and ratings) want a specific target location, and that's what Accuweather is out to do. They are a business, not a non-profit organization - therefore they MUST and should be expected to give the viewers what they want. The fact is, if Accuweather didn't make outlandish claims, FOX may not have outsourced them to do the job.

Do you honestly expect a company to say "Yeah, NHC is better than us, in fact you can visit their website here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov"?

I can understand being upset at the management for making their on-air mets gloat, but it seems you have a very personal grudge against Joe, may I ask why?

 

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by rdewey+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rdewey)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Benjamin Sipprell

...he knows damn full well he messed up when yesterday he was all about the storm plowing straight into Galveston and Houston and the possibility of strengthening ... ranting and raving about devastation, destruction, billions of dollars ... yeah nice going smart guy ...

It seems to me quite a few members on this board made a mistake as well...

The guy is only doing his assigned job - and the job isn't to say "well, I think it MIGHT hit here"... The public (and ratings) want a specific target location, and that's what Accuweather is out to do. They are a business, not a non-profit organization - therefore they MUST and should be expected to give the viewers what they want. The fact is, if Accuweather didn't make outlandish claims, FOX may not have outsourced them to do the job.

Do you honestly expect a company to say "Yeah, NHC is better than us, in fact you can visit their website here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov\"?

I can understand being upset at the management for making their on-air mets gloat, but it seems you have a very personal grudge against Joe, may I ask why?[/b]

Why are you judging peoples personal opinions on someone else? IMO, there are ample reasons why people would dis-like these individuals based on the actions and statements they have said. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and doing their job is not an all out excuse.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by Anonymous+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Anonymous)</div>

Originally posted by rdewey@
<!--QuoteBegin-Benjamin Sipprell

...he knows damn full well he messed up when yesterday he was all about the storm plowing straight into Galveston and Houston and the possibility of strengthening ... ranting and raving about devastation, destruction, billions of dollars ... yeah nice going smart guy ...

It seems to me quite a few members on this board made a mistake as well...

The guy is only doing his assigned job - and the job isn't to say "well, I think it MIGHT hit here"... The public (and ratings) want a specific target location, and that's what Accuweather is out to do. They are a business, not a non-profit organization - therefore they MUST and should be expected to give the viewers what they want. The fact is, if Accuweather didn't make outlandish claims, FOX may not have outsourced them to do the job.

Do you honestly expect a company to say "Yeah, NHC is better than us, in fact you can visit their website here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov\"?

I can understand being upset at the management for making their on-air mets gloat, but it seems you have a very personal grudge against Joe, may I ask why?

Why are you judging peoples personal opinions on someone else? IMO, there are ample reasons why people would dis-like these individuals based on the actions and statements they have said. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and doing their job is not an all out excuse.[/b]

My post was MY personal opinion, so it sounds like you are doing doing exactly what you tell me NOT to do :wink:

I just don't like seeing the personal attacks, and would rather comply with the ST rules... Of course, most of the people here are "anonymous" and probably didn't read the rules... But still.

 

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by rdewey+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rdewey)</div>

Originally posted by Anonymous+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Anonymous)

<!--QuoteBegin-rdewey

@
<!--QuoteBegin-Benjamin Sipprell

...he knows damn full well he messed up when yesterday he was all about the storm plowing straight into Galveston and Houston and the possibility of strengthening ... ranting and raving about devastation, destruction, billions of dollars ... yeah nice going smart guy ...

It seems to me quite a few members on this board made a mistake as well...

The guy is only doing his assigned job - and the job isn't to say "well, I think it MIGHT hit here"... The public (and ratings) want a specific target location, and that's what Accuweather is out to do. They are a business, not a non-profit organization - therefore they MUST and should be expected to give the viewers what they want. The fact is, if Accuweather didn't make outlandish claims, FOX may not have outsourced them to do the job.

Do you honestly expect a company to say "Yeah, NHC is better than us, in fact you can visit their website here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov\"?

I can understand being upset at the management for making their on-air mets gloat, but it seems you have a very personal grudge against Joe, may I ask why?

Why are you judging peoples personal opinions on someone else? IMO, there are ample reasons why people would dis-like these individuals based on the actions and statements they have said. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and doing their job is not an all out excuse.[/b]

My post was MY personal opinion, so it sounds like you are doing doing exactly what you tell me NOT to do :wink:

I just don't like seeing the personal attacks, and would rather comply with the ST rules... Of course, most of the people here are "anonymous" and probably didn't read the rules... But still.[/b][/quote]

You don't like personal attacks but you are accusing people of harboring personal grudges. Sounds like a personal attack to me. Im not sure what rule violation you are refering to but accusing others of harboring personal grudges which is probably the same rule violation.

 

[HAltschule]

I think I'll throw in my $0.02 to calm things down a bit. I was still banking on a left hand jog early enough to make landfall in the Galveston area. I'll be the first to admit that I was off a little bit in my landfall prediction...but not by much. I don't think that's the issue here.

The issue here, and the personal flames stem from someone and the company they are the CEO of flaunting that they are the best and actually badmouthing the federal government in public. The kind of comments that I heard about aimed at NHC from Accuweather are extremely uncalled for. I have seen Accuweather blow numerous forecasts before when mine were right. So what, it happens. I didn't badmouth them for it. No other companies to my knowledge are badmouthing NHC. Accuweather has a peronal agenda and these flames were not done by accident. The fact of the matter remains that NHC did a superb job not only with Katrina but also with Rita. The organization of the hurricane hunter flights, advisories and the hundreds of other coordination conference calls they are responsible for is something that they should be commended for. To flame them, because they have an "Expiremental" plot map and to say the things they did publicly is completely uncalled for. In fact, I believe Accuweather should publicly apologize to the NHC (NOAA) for these blatant accusations. I further think that the American Meteorological Society should demand this apology. Maybe everyone here should sign a petition demanding an apology. Just some ideas, but the bottom line is, Accuweather was way out of line with the PUBLIC flames toward NHC and the verification of their forecasts has room for improvement too.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by HAltschule
I think I'll throw in my $0.02 to calm things down a bit. I was still banking on a left hand jog early enough to make landfall in the Galveston area. I'll be the first to admit that I was off a little bit in my landfall prediction...but not by much. I don't think that's the issue here.

The issue here, and the personal flames stem from someone and the company they are the CEO of flaunting that they are the best and actually badmouthing the federal government in public. The kind of comments that I heard about aimed at NHC from Accuweather are extremely uncalled for. I have seen Accuweather blow numerous forecasts before when mine were right. So what, it happens. I didn't badmouth them for it. No other companies to my knowledge are badmouthing NHC. Accuweather has a peronal agenda and these flames were not done by accident. The fact of the matter remains that NHC did a superb job not only with Katrina but also with Rita. The organization of the hurricane hunter flights, advisories and the hundreds of other coordination conference calls they are responsible for is something that they should be commended for. To flame them, because they have an \"Expiremental\" plot map and to say the things they did publicly is completely uncalled for. In fact, I believe Accuweather should publicly apologize to the NHC (NOAA) for these blatant accusations. I further think that the American Meteorological Society should demand this apology. Maybe everyone here should sign a petition demanding an apology. Just some ideas, but the bottom line is, Accuweather was way out of line with the PUBLIC flames toward NHC and the verification of their forecasts has room for improvement too.

Yes... This is a good example of a well thought out post, with no flames. By reading Howie's post, I can identify the problem and I actually AGREE.

What made me upset was the bashing of a particular met, who had nothing to do with the story at hand...

And to "Guest" - I don't intend on persuing a conversation with you. If you have additional issues, feel free to PM me if possible.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Isn't archived data from AccuWeather and NHC still available? It would be easy to carefully quantify the error and see who did best, whether it was NHC or AccuWeather. Though getting the word out was certainly more important, forecasting skill is at the core of what we all do. It would be nice to cut through all the smoke and mirrors for a change.

We're getting some very healthy gusts here in Palestine... 30 gusting to 50 mph. Had a few power flickers earlier.

Tim

 

[HAltschule]

Indeed they are. Here is a link to the NHC website containing Rita archives. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/RITA.shtml?

I don't know where A-wx's archive located.

If someone else wants to do a well thought out and careful comparison of forecast tracks, intensities at the same time they were issued by each....then it may be neat to see.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I think one resource for getting past AccuWeather tracks would be www.archive.org, as well as news.google.com . I have no idea what's on their own site... maybe they keep a blog there?

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

The irony, of course, is that a good portion of the area shaded red (90+%) did not get sustained hurricane winds, as the storm landfell east of their projection. I dunno about you, but I like to be REAL sure about something before I say 90+%. Maybe that's why the experimental forecast from the NHC went with such low probs that far out?

If Accuweather knew half as much as they thought they did, they'd be dangerous.

 

[Pat]

BTW, I never meant to suggest Joe Bastardi was at fault for anything! I was only making the point that what he says on behalf of AccuWeather could turn out to be incorrect in the end....but that doesn't make AccuWeather "useless". That is never an appropriate word to use regarding anything where other people are concerned...AccuWeather needs to apologize for it!

Joe Bastardi is often correct regarding his tropical predictions..of this there is little doubt. However, he has been incorrect in the past, will be in the future (people have been doing this since there have been people...regardles of subject)...and I'll bet a few of his correct calls will be based, at least in part, on NHC products. It is a little silly to deny taking at least a peek at what NHC has to say

 

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by rdewey
The guy is only doing his assigned job - and the job isn't to say \"well, I think it MIGHT hit here\"... The public (and ratings) want a specific target location, and that's what Accuweather is out to do. They are a business, not a non-profit organization - therefore they MUST and should be expected to give the viewers what they want. The fact is, if Accuweather didn't make outlandish claims, FOX may not have outsourced them to do the job.

Do you honestly expect a company to say \"Yeah, NHC is better than us, in fact you can visit their website here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov\"?

I can understand being upset at the management for making their on-air mets gloat, but it seems you have a very personal grudge against Joe, may I ask why?

Actually, he wasn't just hyping himself and "accu"wx, he was going a step further and bashing the NHC the night before landfall, with all this bunk about them panicking and hugging the models, while he continued screaming about Galveston and the "worst storm ever."

He keeps trying to change the subject to the next couple of weeks now that he has been shown to be wrong. A little less screaming and pointing, and a little more level-headed analysis would go a long way towards giving him a little more credibility...not that "accu"wx has that much credibility anyways.

Lay off the steroids, Joe.