Just talked with my sister, who lives in Key West, and they expect the hurricane to miss them. I'm not sure how to handicap this, since it's not clear what the probability model is that NOAA is using to determine the course of the storm. Normally the midline of the "cone" representing the storm's probable path would indicate the path of highest probability, or at least some line struck lengthwise through the cone. This is the case if the proper analog for the storm is a "curve ball" or a "slider," or even a "fast ball" that has some probabilitistic distribution (not necessarily standard normal). But if the proper analog of the storm is a "knuckle ball" then the actual storm path could be anywhere within the cone, with no path being any more likely than another. This is what the Weather Service spokesman seems to indicate, but he may just be playing it safe so that people on the outer edges of the cone don't get too complacent. It's not clear to me that a knuckle ball is the proper model since the critter is spinning, which would tend to make its behavior somewhat contained and predictable. The knuckle ball technique requires throwing the ball with very little, if any, spin.
Oh well, looks like the southern keys are safe, more or less, for the moment. My sister also says that gasoline is in very short supply so that people who haven't yet evacuated will have to ride out the storm in shelters instead of evacuating. The whole thing reminds me of the image of waiting to be hammered by the fist of a monster whose design is inscrutible.
Posted by Demosophist at September 2, 2004 05:36 PM | TrackBack