Demosophia

Isabel, whither goest thou?

My friend, David, has a vineyard out near a place called "Old Rag" on the edge of the Blue Ridge, and is now harvesting. He once said that the way to make a small fortune in the wine business, is to start with a large fortune. So he isn't assured of making a small fortune, and is watching the projected track of the storm with great care. But the maps available at Intellicast and the Weather Channel leave a bit to be desired in the resolution department. And that brings up the question of precision. The precise predicted path of the storm is subject to considerable variation, and it could apparently make landfall anywhere along the North Carolina or Virginia Coast, although it will apparently miss Delmarva (the Delaware/Maryland/Virginia Peninsula, for those not from this area). So, since we aren't sure about the precise path what we have is a probability distribution pattern, not unlike what statisticians call a "confidence interval" (although strictly speaking it's actually a "prediction interval"), for the eye, which is also usually the path of greatest intensity. And if you look at the Intellicast projection you'll see a line in the middle of the probable path. The Weather Channel doesn't bother with the line, which I guess implies that they think Isabel is more like a knuckle ball than a slider. That is, the Intellicast picture implies that there's a probability distribution and the path with the highest probability (and also the greatest intensity) is on the line, while the odds and intensity diminish as you move away from the line, to the southwest and northeast. A curve ball or a slider, while it may give you some surprises, has a path that's probabilistic, whereas a knuckle ball is a bit more like an atomic particle whose precise position no one ever really knows, unless it hits you, or you hit it (largely by accident). So I can see a rationale for ignoring the precision of the underlying map on the Weather Channel's site, but if I were harvesting some Cabernet Sauvignon that could be badly damaged by this storm, and I thought the situation implied by Intellicast's picture was the reality, I might be a bit frustrated by the lack of precision of the map.

I hope I have the science about right. Well, at least in the ball park....