64 thoughts on “Wrong Forecast Spared Islands, Shattered Nerves, Cost Hawaiian Air Millions”

  1. Loved your expose’! Incompetent, pathetic, hysteria-inducing bungled forecasts !
    How many thousands of residents took time off from work (lucky to have work now), and spent hundred$ on supplies, equipment, generators, etc. “Crying wolf” will have many ignoring the next warnings. We could have used a few inches of rain: only got 1/8″, in Volcano.

    1. Thanks for putting it so simply, John W!
      I couldn’t agree more!

      My phone notification siren woke me up here on the north shore of Kauai @ 11PM Saturday night. Then wailed again a few minutes before noon on Sunday, to explain it would be followed -by an extremely long lasting Warning Siren blasting for what seemed like 5 minutes in my neighborhood. All to ‘alert’ me to a Hurricane warning for arrival approximately 24hrs, and 12hrs respectively!
      I would have rather they waited until landfall actually began (supposed to be 2-3AM Monday morning) to wake me up… because by the time it was supposed to arrive here onshore, I might have just gone right back to sleep and ignored it, if another siren went off then… and I don’t know if I could ever find a better example of ‘crying wolf’ syndrome in practice. I have no idea how to react to a warning siren anymore. And I have no faith in local news accuracy of reporting any longer. Even after local news spent hours of reporting on excuses as to why they “nudged” the maps & numbers for the sake of “safety”, that just further expose how hysterical they become for advertisers dollars. I woke up Monday to a small puddle and no sign of even a strong breeze…

  2. I too spent all day yesterday preparing and now I have to put everything back! Ugh!! HOWEVER, I appreciate the efforts of news teams, CPHC, NOAA and other government agencies to keep us informed and protected. They did a great job and all of us should be grateful and not critical of their efforts or blame them for how people or businesses responded to the information provided. Thanks to all mentioned above. Please keep up the good work!

  3. your decision to belittle forecasters for this NEAR MISS is ill advised. better for them to miss being cautious than for the untrained to become experts in their own minds. over and over the meteorologists explained the “cone of uncertainty”. you ignore that explanation. looking back, the eye of douglas never left the cone. YOU should apologize, and read about the cone.

    1. Thank you for expressing my sentiments. I was holding my tongue, but very annoyed at the tone of this article. The author clearly likes to sensationalize and stir up bad feelings toward Hawaii officials. Blaming the weather on them now?!? Hawaii prepares for EVERY hurricane that approaches the islands no matter from which direction. Having suffered through two, I would not want anyone intelligently guessing as whether we should prepare or not.

  4. This report sounds more bothered than relieved. We should demand better information from everyone beginning with the governor.

  5. It sounds like it wasn’t the wrong forecast, it was the safe forecast. The islands have been there for millions of years. Comparisons to the last 50-100 years or even the last several hundred years is unrealistic. That time frame is a blink of the eye as far as mother nature is concerned. Certainly the islands have taken a hit from every point on the compass. Better to count your blessings and consider this a dress rehearsal. It’s only a matter of time before the real deal finds it’s way back to Hawaii. Just happy no one was injured or worse.

  6. I’m a commercial rated pilot as part of my rating we must study and then pass an examine as it pertains to weather. To this day predicting the path of a Hurricane like Douglas is an educated guess at best. I along with several other amateur weather buffs we tracked Hurricane Douglas for several days. Using historic weather patterns and barometric pressure readings none of us could make a definitive prediction on where Douglas would make land fall. We held our breath and hoped for the best and the best happened. So instead of moaning about should a could a would a be thankful for the results.

  7. Glad everything went better than thought.
    I always say that Meteorology is the only career that you can be wrong everyday and still have a job.
    I’m thankful that the forecasted storm never materialized.
    Now we can all go back to wondering what’s next with the governor and COVID-19.
    Great..
    Mahalo to Beat of Hawai’i, you’re the best 🌺

  8. Brought to you by the same people who are predicting Global Warming and/or eminent Climate Change which ever you would like to call it.

  9. Watching the forecasts from here in Chicago, your storm was sometimes forecast as a tropical storm and other times as a Cat 1 (lowest level) hurricane. But the visuals told a different story! The evening news graphics showed a massive storm border in yellow then orange shades, and continuing inward to bright red, blood red, then blacks and a very evil looking dark purple center. But the thing is, those colors all are chosen by some software developer somewhere! Why blood red and dark purple? Because that’s what the developer thought would look coolest. It also looked scariest, though I can’t say that was the motive for the color choice. The same thing happens with coronavirus: we have a epidemic that makes some people horrible sick, but leaves most with zero or mild symptoms and kills just 0.2 percent of people infected. But the colors chosen by graphic artists for TV images are the same scare-us-****less colors: blood red, with huge images of animated Covid particles. Follow the numbers and the science, NOT what TV news wants us ti believe.

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