While watching the Weather Channel discuss how Hurricane Ian would hit Tampa Bay, they switched the feed to an ongoing press conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis. During the press conference, DeSantis made a bold statement which caught the Weather Channel off guard. He said Hurricane Ian may turn and track farther south like Charlie did in 2004.
Even though the spaghetti models had Ian going farther north and south, DeSantis specifically said farther south. He no doubt said this because he had access to the European weather model output — which all along had shown forecast tracks farther south — even down to Fort Myers. Up until this time, the official forecast was farther north — closer to the statistically less accurate GFS (American) model.
Then, once the TV feed returned back to the Weather Channel studio, you could see they initially didn’t quite know how to follow up on DeSantis’ comment. Of course they knew DeSantis was right, because they also had access to the Euro model output. Weather Channel forecasters immediately acknowledged DeSantis’ comment and began discussing the Euro model output in earnest. Soon afterwards, the official Hurricane Ian forecast tracks steadily moved southward toward Fort Myers.Â
DeSantis helped save lives with his public forewarning of Ian’s more southerly track.
The next meeting of the Weather Club will present a post-analysis of this event, complete with GFS .vs. Euro forecast comparisons. Club meeting is Oct. 20, at Bridgeport Recreation Center at 1:30 p.m.
Villager John Shewchuk is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com.
