The Hurricane Sandy Assessment

The National Weather Service has released its final assessment of its service to the public during Hurricane Sandy.


Given the restrictions the team was under, I thought they did a good job. They noted the NWS did a meteorologically great job in a difficult forecast situation (I agree!) but there were serious problems with what I would call the threat communication. I agree with that, also. It correctly focuses on issues related to communicating storm surge information. The surge was the biggest killer in Sandy.

The report noted the NWS was focusing on the trees (definitions of terms) rather than the forest (the threat posed by Sandy) and the Service is taking steps to rectify the problem when similar storms occur in the future.

I do wish the assessment team had visited the National Hurricane Center and spoken -- behind closed doors -- with their forecasters and public relations staff. Their hurricane experts often have an interesting perspective and I respect it. They might have materially added to the report.

That said, I wish to congratulate the NWS on the report and wish them well in implementing a number of good ideas contained in the report.


A clarification: The team did travel to the National Hurricane Center but did not interview people individually or in confidence.

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