Article: Why the Pointless NYC Subway Shutdown Was Worse Than You Realize

[sharp_stick]

12. I agree this exact thing

is at least a partial reason why so many people decided to stick around with Katrina. They were told the world was ending over 3 or 4 hurricanes and this didn't seen any different so what the hell, just wait it out.

when you have the Gov and Mayor on TV talking about the historic storm that IS coming and then it misses it causes a real perception that they have no clue what they were saying.

I can kind of understand the reasoning. They wanted people to take the threat seriously and didn't want first responders out trying to help morons wandering around in the middle of a blizzard. The problem is they didn't mention that it was still a forecast and they failed to nuance it and tell people that there was a chance that it might not be "The Storm Of The Century".

If they had of gotten three feet of snow and 65mph winds in Manhattan, that is if the storm wound up about 60 miles further West than it actually did people would have been happy they didn't wind up out in it. That was exactly where the European global model had the storm going and it's been the big winner over the last couple of years at predicting these storms. Unfortunately all the other models were in pretty good agreement that the storm was going to wind up 60 miles further East that the European and a lot of people just dismissed them.

We had a normally responsible weather crew here in CT that actually put up a graphic in their forecast based only on the European model at 6:00 Monday, the night of the storm. It had us pegged at 47 inches of snow by the next evening. We wound up with 17, just a little lighter. That graphic was never mentioned again.