Thirty years ago today was the first day in business for a tiny company, WeatherData, Inc., that I founded August 31, 1981. The chances of a startup company making it to the 30-year mark are far less than 1%. So, I thought our readers might like to know some of the principles of our success.   Never start a company until you have a well-defined goal about which you are both passionate and competent to execute. ·       100% of the entrepreneurs I have known say creating and running a business is harder than they expected. I know I expected it to be hard but I, too, found it to be extraordinarily difficult, especially since mine was 24/7. There is no way I could have stuck it out unless I was passionate about my goal of saving lives and property.  As a business owner, “the highs are very high and the lows are very low and there are many more of the latter.” ·       Every entrepreneur to whom I have given this advice has late...

From CNN here.

There are now two news stories (one yesterday, one today) complaining that Vermont was not warned of the danger of Irene. As I state below, my head was down in the data for days and so I cannot speak for anyone else. But, I can state that Vermont was included in the warnings Tweets that I was sending out. How explicit were the warnings? For four days, I -- and others -- were warning of the likelihood of flooding in New England. I posted this Saturday along with map outlining, in red, an area of "major flooding" that included Vermont. Calling, in advance, for evacuation preparations for a 200- year flood plain width around rivers is indicative of an extreme hazard. I know the NWS had a flash flood watch out for the area. When I wrote about all of the hazards meteorologists were trying to think through , this was one of the hazards I was talking about. So, as tragic and devastating as the record flooding has been, it is not accurate or fair to say there was "no w...

...more than doubled  tripled since this time last week. I would like to thank all of our Twitter followers, especially any we might have failed to individually thank in the craziness of the hurricane and earthquake. We enjoy hearing from you and retweets are always appreciated. If you'd like to follow, we're @usweatherexpert.

One of my objections to the global warming movement is the hypocrisy of many of its principals. Here is a photo (hat tip: WattsUpWithThat) of global warming zealot Jim Hansen of NASA getting arrested (again) in front of the White House yesterday. He is protesting a pipeline that will bring more Canadian oil into the U.S. Photos from Flckr, posted by tarsandsandaction.org Notice anything odd in a photo of a protest about the environment? No? Let's try another showing an arrest of another person from another angle. Still don't see it?  Let's zoom in on the photo above: Look at the plastic water bottles strewn about the area! This is the White House. Don't these environmental activists have enough pride to clean up after themselves?!  How about environmentalists setting a good example? Duke and Dutchess of Windsor boarding British Airways flight Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri (head of the IPCC), and Laurie David ("environmental activist" and prod...

The name "Katrina" is retired so Tropical Storm Katia has formed in the Atlantic. She is expected to intensify into hurricane status the next few days. Important note: Don't sweat Katia. It is by no means certain she will hit any land mass and, if she does, it will not be this week.

New York "Daily News"

For those that believe there was too much "hype" about Irene (I do not have an opinion, my head was deep in the data and I didn't watch any coverage until landfall Sunday morning), consider these preliminary numbers from the New York Times . These statistics are from 1980 (when full-time high resolution satellite data was first becoming available) to present: Damage?  First estimates are $14 billion; ranking 8th Fatalities? Tied with Fran for 10th with 21 , but Irene's are expected to rise. UPDATE: According to the WSJ, 38 fatalities are now reported as of 10pm CDT Monday. As of 9am Tuesday, the death toll stands at 40. Irene is now #4 in terms of fatalities since 1980. Average the two and you get the 9th   6th worst hurricane in 31 years.   And, there is this when you are thinking about forecasts of hurricane intensity, Imagine, for instance, if Irene had been about 20 percent stronger when it hit New York — that it had wind speeds of about 90 miles an hou...

So, how did the meteorological profession do with Irene, a rare hurricane that made landfall in the Northeast United States? Meteorologists almost always do postmortems on major storms because we need to learn from our mistakes so we can do it better next time. By definition, it is difficult to forecast rare events because of the lack of analogues. For example, if there has never been a full-fledged hurricane in Manhattan in the era of skyscrapers, how will we know the level of damage a hurricane might cause? So, with that in mind, let’s go over some of the forecasts made on this blog and compare them to reality. My colleagues at AccuWeather and I made some excellent proprietary forecasts that were sometimes ahead of those available from government sources, which is what our business clients pay for. However, because I do not post those forecasts on this blog, I'm doing an analysis of the public forecasts I posted here. The early forecasts of Irene, made last Sunday (21 st ) w...

From Bill Read via Facebook comes this photo of the National Hurricane Center's staff Saturday tracking Irene. Associated Press photo by Andy Newman. I recognize the looks on their faces. It is a combination of concern and concentration and I see it on the faces of our meteorologists at AccuWeather all of the time. We are trying to outwit Mother Nature and  human nature, the latter in the sense that we have to think through hazards that might not be obvious in order to give people the information they need to protect themselves, their families and their businesses.

This map is created by using a combination of rain gauges and radar estimates to fill in the gaps between gauges. Combine these excessive rainfalls with what has already been a very wet August in the region and you have a recipe for extreme flooding.

Tonight, I'll recap Irene with an eye to the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the forecasts. Mid-week, I'll be talking about the 30th, and last, anniversary of WeatherData, Inc., the company I founded August 31, 1981. WeatherData has had a distinguished history, plus the chances of a start-up business reaching the 30 year mark are far less than 1%. What made us successful? Please come back for all this and more.

During my 40 years as a meteorologist, I have a lot of experience with hurricanes and other major storms. I have observed that hurricanes tend to bring odd ideas to the surface. When you combine an earthquake, the odd ideas – if my email is any indication – really start flowing. Beyond the theories about airplane vapor trails and remote control of earthquakes, perhaps the oddest idea floating around now is that that the U.S. National Weather Service should be shut down or deeply scaled back. Saturday evening, a friend forwarded a Fox News op-ed calling for the NWS to be abolished. That op-ed, if you wish to read it, is here . It is easy to say, “abolish the National Weather Service.” Explaining why that is a bad idea is a bit more complicated, so I hope you will bear with me. The National Weather Service of the United States (NWS) plays a vital role that would be impossible for the private sector to fill. That is due to the unique nature of weather. Because weather d...