Where are All the Hurricanes?
Really good question:
Forecasts for a busy hurricane season in 2006 were all dead wrong. This year, forecasters predicted a really busy year again. But with just two storms to date, and neither one a hurricane, you might wonder where all the action is.
Although the article goes on to suggest that it's too early to tell how busy this hurricane season will be, it's still an important reminder that prediction ain't all it's cracked up to be. And it should remind us that if some of the best forecasters in the business can be so wrong on the limited subject of hurricane number and strength, we should be extremely wary of those who claim to be able to tell us how high the average global temperatures will be a hundred years from now.
Oh, and one other thing...can we PLEASE outlaw the use of the word decimate by ignorant journalists:
Some seasons have seen unusually late starts. The 1992 season, for example, didn’t start up until August. And boy did it start with a bang: Hurricane Andrew decimated South Florida.
Even if one does not insist on the original meaning of the word, the more modern usage does not apply. Hurricane Andrew did indeed cause a great deal of damage ($26 billion, according to Wikipedia), but using sloppy language to describe the damage doesn't facilitate understanding of the scope of that storm. Perhaps this seems a bit pedantic, but is it too much to ask that those whose job it is to inform their readers excercise a little care with the language?