This was actually going to be my guess as to why. Go figure.
The superiority of ECMWF is largely due to Europeās willingness to invest in software and spend on computers. āThe Europeans have simply thrown more people and more money at it,ā Masters says . āSo they get better results.ā In comparison, the U.S. has remained largely reactiveāefforts are now being made now to upgrade computing power and improve data simulation systems, but our accuracy still lags behind. Back in 2006, after the devastation following Hurricane Katrina the National Science Board called for an increase of $300 million in hurricane research funding per year. According to Masters, the budget hasnāt changed much since.
USN seems to corroborate ECMWF. Not looking good for beach house or brewery regardless. Come on baby, push inland please.
So just flew out the last patients that my shift will be able to transport. The wind is already picking up in Jacksonville, NC (just north of Wilmington, NC) and Iād like to be able to go back and snatch two more, but our nurses are timing out so they have to bring in the day shift crews.
Iām not real optimistic that conditions will hold up over the next three hours to allow for the transports when you have TAFs that are starting to hit 50mph gusts by 1PM. As we were leaving the first bit of lightning was visible just off the coast and the mid level moisture was starting to cross the beach. The current ILM forecast shows the trend of deteriorating weather:
TAF KILM 130537Z 1306/1406 02012KT P6SM SCT030 SCT100
FM130800 01012G19KT P6SM VCSH SCT012 BKN025
FM131300 36017G26KT P6SM VCSH SCT012 BKN025
FM131700 36034G46KT 5SM SHRA SCT012 OVC050
FM140000 35047G60KT 3SM SHRA SCT010 OVC025
FM140400 36060G70KT 2SM +SHRA SCT008 OVC018
There might be a window of six more hours or so and then I think most of the transports will shut down. Then it is hunker down, wait for this few days of crud, and fly back in to start moving the people that stayed and are having ailments (and who wonāt have power or water) and start getting them out.
Ready to go home and sleep now.
Stay safe, my friend!
Good luck! Looks like itās about to get heavy!
One of the friends of mine who was at the show with us back in July is on the receiving end of all your efforts, providing temporary care for the patients being evacuated in a clinic in Durham.
Get some rest, my friend - and well done.
Watching Florence and the METAR of KILM and others in the area on Windy.com right now.
Nice site btw. But Florence sure looks threatening.
Live feed from the Frying Pan camera off Southport:
Hahaā¦I was just coming here to link that. Letās see how well our flag stands up!
Why??? OK, every now and then they get a bad storm coming off the North Sea but, they donāt get hurricanes. Heck, when I was in the UK (2006-2009), London had its first tornado in more than living memoryā¦it even killed someone (standing by a brick wall that was blown over). So why are they throwing more money and people at it?
Do they know something we in the US donāt know? European Mudspikers, whatās the story?
The UK, France and the Netherlands still own a number of possessions in the Caribbean. Technically they do get hurricanes.
Also, because those storm systems affect merchant shipping, and as I learned from the linked articles about El Faro, thatās an area that appears to have room for improvement for shipboard tracking.
Bogue Inlet Pier on Emerald Isleā¦probably wonāt be there tomorrow if the water is already hitting the bottom of the deck boardsā¦
http://www.ebmcdn.net/webcast/flash/bogue-inlet/live-iframe.html
Holy crap. Yep, thatās going to be coming down.
Good point. And Lloyds of London is the main insurer of commercial shipping.
There is always room for improvement. However, El Faro is probably not a good example. It didnāt have a working wind gauge or anemometerā¦hadnāt for months.
Think of a ship like that with several levels of containers on deck and what the wind is going to do with that if its strong and coming across the beam. I was on LPH-9 in the Med when we hit a strong gust in a squall. The ship went over about 10-15 degrees for about 30 seconds. We had maybe Ā¼ the āsail areaā of a big container ship.
At night, during that storm, not being able to get true and relative wind, not being able to get wind speedā¦something about a creek and no paddle.
Sure, his weather reports offā¦but that ship was an accident waiting to happen anyway.
Weather models arenāt calculated for the sole purpose of predicting hurricane paths. There are other natural disasters that kill plenty of people and thereās lots of scientific research depending on good weather models. Think precipitation forecasts and flooding, avalanche warnings, heck even car insurances depend on weather models.
Trueā¦however, and I could be wrong, they are not āone size fits allā either. I would think that the models for North Sea storms (protection for lots of off shore oil rigs) are perhaps not fundamentally different but are not āPlug and Playā for hurricane predictions. @Navynuke99ās point about services to merchant shipping is a good point and thus would require modes for many parts of the world.
I guess my point was that for a country that gets slammed with hurricanes on a fairly regular basisāheck we even have a āHurricane Seasonā, akin to Baseball and Football seasonsāone would think that the US would put a lot more effort into predictive models.
While Europe, which one must admit does not receive quite the ferocity of weather that some places in North America do, has evidently invested moreā¦and has the results to prove it. Not quite Khrushchev banging his shoe and declaring āwe will burry youā butā¦
ā¦to paraphrase a line from DR. Strangelove, āMr. President! We must not allow a Hurricane Model Gap!ā 
As you are well aware, politicians control the budget, and Anything that involves weather or climate science is a political third rail in this country for the time being. Weāll leave it at that.
^^exactly what he said.