climate change

Overstatement

For more than two decades, I have suspected the weather reporters have sensationalized weather just as much as the MSM exaggerates and creates new stories. I was kicked off of a hurricane and weather reporting site in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for telling people that the damage in Katrina wasn’t as bad as was being reported.

I was there, on the ground as a rescuer in the area of Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, and Biloxi. Damage was pretty severe within about a mile or so of the beach, but outside of that, it really wasn’t that bad. We watched as reporters told their viewers no one was there helping, while we were standing right next to them distributing food, medical aid, and searching neighborhoods for the injured and dead.

I had pictures. That didn’t matter. I disagreed with the consensus there and was expelled from the website.

About ten years ago, we had a hurricane pass almost directly over our heads, and the damage was nowhere near what the winds being reported would have done. So I bought a personal weather station. Nothing I’ve seen from that PWS has supported what the weather folks report.

The same is true about Hurricane Isaias. It was reportedly a CAT3, then weakened at the last minute to a CAT2, and even that lower bar wasn’t seen on shore. The highest wind I could find in the storm’s path was a wind gust to 116 mph with a sustained wind of 91 mph reported at a station near Santa Rosa Sound, Florida. That’s category 1 strength.

We are seeing this time and time again- a hurricane makes landfall and the wind speeds are nowhere near what was predicted.

By Divemedic, ago

Mud

Today, I woke up to the first sunny morning in the past five days. A week of clouds and rain (more than 5 inches of it). I had to drain water from my pool on five different occasions to keep it from overflowing.

When I walked outside this morning, humidity was at 100% with a dewpoint of 74degF. It smells like mud outside. Now that it’s sunny and the ground is wet, the grass is going to grow like it’s mutated, but it will be hot, humid, and the ground too muddy to mow for the next few days.

Because the hurricane passed to our west, winds are now out of the southwest, and we are back into heat and moisture being blown at us from the Gulf. For the next week, we are back to hot and humid, with temperatures in the upper 80s.

I like it much better when storms pass to our south or west. That side of the storm pulls the cooler, dryer air towards us.

By Divemedic, ago

Hurricane

We officially got our first hurricane of 2026’s season at 2330 Eastern Time on October 7. 23:30 EDT on October 7 is 03:30 UTC on October 8, which is the time NHC confirms it upgraded Isaias to a hurricane. Hurricane records use UTC, so its official date is October 8. That means 2026 ties 1905 for the latest first Atlantic hurricane on record by calendar date, matching a mark that stood for 121 years, making it the latest first hurricane in the Atlantic basin since we began spotting them with satellites.

While we here at Sector Ocho always monitor Hurricanes that are near Florida, this one is forecast to strike LA (Lower Alabama), which is what we here in Florida call the Panhandle. For us here on the Florida Peninsula, it will be a rain event only. We aren’t even forecast to get any wind from it. There is nothing to get excited about unless you are in the central path of a storm that’s a CAT 3 or higher when it makes landfall. For that reason, our daily routine here at Sector Ocho will remain as normal. I will not be activating any of my storm checklists or plans at this time.

What *has* happened this week is a cold front has been stalled over the central part of the state, and my rain gauge says we have received a steady rain for the past three days- four inches of rain. Since the area has been in a rain deficit for the year, this is going to nearly completely erase that problem. We were nearly 7 inches of rain below normal for the year, and the combination of stalled cold front and tropical moisture from the hurricane will erase nearly all of that deficit.

On a side note, this is a fall more like the one from my Florida childhood: lots of rain. I remember one year, we had a cold front stalled over us for over a week, and it completely ruined our Thanksgiving break from school. A week off of school, and stuck inside watching it rain.

By Divemedic, ago

I Guess the Climate Isn’t That Important

According to Canadian climate warriors, beating people who don’t follow their communist belief system is more important than saving the environment. Canada has decided that preventing Tesla from installing battery systems, solar panels, charging stations, and inverters in order to punish and attack Elon Musk is more important than saving the environment. They have removed Tesla from the list of products that are eligible for clean energy rebates, and are even talking about revoking Musk’s citizenship.

Leftism is a religion, and Musk has been excommunicated.

By Divemedic, ago

The Florida model

Remember when I explained how Florida got burned once, and changed the way that they handle forestry and wildland fires? California doesn’t do that. The people in forestry are trying to do an experiment to see if it will work, but lefty environmentalists are suing to prevent it.

The forest service plans to use prescribed burns, forest thinning, and herbicides as part of the massive fuel reduction project. It’s designed to protect communities in Plumas and Butte Counties from future wildfires…Josh Hart, a spokesman for Feather River Action explained the group’s concerns. The lawsuit plaintiffs are environmental groups including Feather River Action, Plumas Forest Project John Muir Project. Hart said his group refers to the plan as the forest devastation project. “What the forest service is proposing is only going to make the situation worse,”

They are pretending that fires don’t naturally occur, which of course reduces the availability of fuel that makes wildfires larger. You see, it’s better to have smaller fires every couple of years than it is to suppress that until the fuel is so prevalent that the fire is impossible to put out.

This is the problem with the left- they are morons who deserve to see their homes burn down due to their stupid voting habits.

You get what you vote for.

By Divemedic, ago

Why I Got A PWS

A few years ago, a hurricane passed over my house, and even though the weather service was telling us that the winds were hurricane strength, the wind didn’t look that bad, even when the eyewall was over my house. So I bought a personal weather station.

Last night’s wind never went over 30 miles per hour here, and I watched online as the storm made landfall near Perry, Florida. The power is out in the area, so I can’t pull up many weather stations, but the one that is still online in the area is reporting the fastest winds at 52 miles per hour.

I would very much like to see the weather stations that were exactly on the coast to see what the real winds were. I think that the NWS has been overhyping these things for years. I do know that “subtropical” storms were not included in named storms until 2002. What does this mean? In the 29 hurricane seasons that subtropical storms have been added to the naming system, there have been an average of 16 named storms per year, with only 4 of those seasons seeing fewer than 12 storms. In the 19 seasons prior to 2002, there were an average of 11 named storms per year, with ten of those seasons having fewer than 12 storms.

So why did the criteria for naming storms change? If you look at the statistics for named storms, something jumps out at you. The number of storms drastically increases beginning in 1995. What changed in 1995? Was it global warming?

Nope. The director of the National Hurricane Center, Doctor Bob Sheets, retired in 1995. The director of the NHC sets the criteria by which storms are classified. Politics, or science? Now the left can point to the larger number of named storms and blame the climate change boogieman.

I am not saying that the people who are dealing with damage are not suffering. I am saying that the NHC is overstating the strength of these storms in order to support pushes for “green new deal” type laws.

By Divemedic, ago

It Isn’t the Same

All of Europe has spent years slamming the people in the US for using air conditioning. I have blogged on this before. Now the UK is crying because they are facing a “record heatwave,” with heat and humidity never seen before. It’s called summer, and you whiny bitches do this every year.

Pussies.

The temperatures in the UK are topping out around 78 degrees Fahrenheit, with dew points at 55 degF (13 deg C) or less. That makes the heat index (feels like) temperature 77 degrees.

Here in Florida, 80 degF was our low for the day, hotter than your high to start the day. The dew point is 74 degF (23 degC), making the heat index a balmy 84 deF (29 degC) before the sun even comes up.

It’s called summer, not climate change.

By Divemedic, ago

Only For the Hoi Polloi

You need to eat bugs, stop doing your laundry, and buy an electric car that makes it impossible to do a long road trip, so you can save the planet. Unless you are rich and famous, then the rules don’t apply to you. If the commoners point out your hypocrisy, then you get a law passed to keep them from finding out how the rules you espouse don’t apply to you. It’s really important that your two private jets be permitted to fly you all over the world because you need to make money, or something.

unlike someone like Musk, Swift actually had a pretty good reason to travel a lot last year: she was on tour.

Musk travelling for business isn’t to be allowed, but Taylor Swift being permitted to travel for business is, like, really, super important, right?

By Divemedic, ago

Myth Busted

The climate change hucksters are claiming that March of 2024 was the warmest on record. I thought this year was rather cool, so I did a little checking.

I have a personal weather station on the roof of my (old) house. It recorded the temperature of March for years. This year, there were 11 days where the high temperature never went above 79 degrees, last year there were 8. In 2024, the high temperature was not above 90 degrees on any day of the month. In 2023, the mercury rose above 90 degrees three times.

There were 5 days in 2023 where the low temperature was below 50 degrees. There were 9 such days in 2024. The coldest morning of March 2024 was 42 degrees, on the 20th. In 2023, the thermometer showed that we hit 42 degrees twice, and 41 was the low for the month, on the 21st.

In other words, it was cooler this year than it was last year, but not by much. Still, that means this March was certainly not the hottest ever. Don’t piss on my shoes and tell me that it’s raining.

By Divemedic, ago