NWS Service Assessment for Irene

[CT Rain]

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/assessments/index.shtml

A few interesting nuggets in here. The huge bandwidth issues that BOX has mentioned several times (rendering their internet unusable at times) are mentioned a bunch. Also mentioned is the relatively fragile state of the back up systems in place. I was shocked that there weren't more redundancies in place at the NWS.

They also talked about how the wind forecasts on land greatly exceeded what was observed and one of the recommendations is allowing individual NWSFOs greater latitude in wind speed forecasts for landfalling hurricanes.

The stuff about the flooding in upstate NY and VT is interesting too and highlights the difficulty of explaining threats and getting the word out. There are some interesting challenges in New England with little county government and having a NWS office communicate with hundreds of different emergency managers in each town that are relatively autonomous (it's an issue in CT and even more so in VT, apparently).

Good read.

[CoastalWx]

That was a good read.....just glanced through it. I guess as bad as Irene was especially due to flooding...it could have been a lot worse. So, better to look back and recommend changes for future storms. I like the idea of WFOs having more control of the warnings.

[CT Rain]

That was a good read.....just glanced through it. I guess as bad as Irene was especially due to flooding...it could have been a lot worse. So, better to look back and recommend changes for future storms. I like the idea of WFOs having more control of the warnings.

Yeah some towns in VT and even some cities were completely unaware that there was going to be flooding.... Nevermind record crests rivaling 1927. That's shocking to me. There must have been a huge breakdown in communication and/or education somewhere along the line. Not sure who's to blame (media, emergency managers, state or NWS) but its clear multiple parties dropped the ball.