It doesn't matter how many or of what intensity storms are. It only matters if and where they hit land. People around here in central Florida are pretty tired of the media induced hysteria, so much so that many will simply ignore warnings and take their chances that they can weather the storm. We know we will never weather the deranged metereologists.

The big media outlets will probably be ticked off if no major storm nails the central Gulf Coast between July and October, since that's the key petrochemical region where a big hit can have national implications -- i.e. $4 a gallon gas prices before the November election (alternatively, they'd take a Cat 3 storm nailing the Elizabeth, N.J. refinery row this fall, the way the
funnel cloud almost did last weekend, as long as it doesn't disrupt things in their lives across the Hudson River too much).

Any storm that hits Florida, far south Texas or anyplace along the south/middle Atlantic coast will dredge up the usual "Al Gore is our savior" global warming stories and FEMA scrutiny tales, but it wouldn't have the power to hurt people directly who aren't in the affected areas. If those are the only areas to get hit, the more rabid partisans will probably start blaming Karl Rove's weather machine for fixing the tropical weather patterns to help Republicans.

Was at an appt today and so the daily news. You'd think a Category 5 was bearing down on the US right now the way they were playing up this routine projection.

The media think that the Katrina coverage showed their power and skill (and was the beginning of the end for Bush). They just don't realize how wrong their 'coverage' was, nor have they ever really investigated the (glaring) discrepancies.

Too bad for them that the picture(s) of the flooded school buses are going to be the legacy of Katrina, not Bush on a stick. And, in 2007, LA will have a Republican governor, along with another GOP senator in 2008.

Ideally there would be a huge outcry in the meteorological community about the gross distortions of media reporting concerning hurricanes. For example, not only is the strength of hurricanes cyclical (a point that is occasionally reported, but only to be dismissed as not really explaining the current upswing), but so is the dominant path of hurricanes, with the two major routes being up the Atlantic coast, and into the Gulf of Mexico. Right now the Gulf seems to be the main route, so it's likely that refineries there will suffer at least some disruptions. Unfortunately, as with a few other scientific fields, the younger generation of climate scientists are far more ideological in their outlook, and since the "truth" that matters has to do with anthropogenic global warming, lies or misrepresentations in service of that "truth" aren't considered worth disputing.

On a related note, has there ever been a more sure thing in the history of the universe than Al Gore's movie winning Best Documentary at the Oscars next year?