Look out New York neighbors a hurricane could be headed our way according to the Independent on Sunday which seems to have run the story twice!
Yes, the sister newspaper of the Independent (which three days ago called the latest hurricanes the “smoking gun” of global warming, ie, it’s all America’s fault) is now predicting that New York is next.
Apparently this could be one of the biggest hurricane seasons yet with two more months of hurricanes still to come:
Some of these storms could hit the US, and experts say New York could be the next city to be devastated. The area around the Big Apple is listed by the [US government’s official National Hurricane] Center as the fifth most vulnerable in the country, after New Orleans, the Florida Keys, Tampa in Florida and Galveston in Texas, all targeted by hurricanes in the past two years.
Max Mayfield, director of the Center, told Congress that Katrina “will not be the last major hurricane to hit a vulnerable area, and New Orleans is not the only location vulnerable to a large disaster from a land-falling hurricane”.
Local experts say that such a catastrophe is “inevitable”, and the New York City authorities warn that it could bring a 30ft-high storm surge crashing into Manhattan.
Nowhere in the story does anyone actually say that New York is next. But if I am to understand the report correctly: since there is likely to be more storms this year, and since four of the five most vulnerable areas have been hit in the last two years, New York is all but assured to be hit by a catastrophic tidal wave. If only either story was longer than 300 words, I may have been able to find out more…
Like the fact that the last hurricane to hit the New York area was called Gloria (a category 1 hurricane), which struck in 1985. And that the last major hurricane to strike the area was a category 3 storm…in the autumn of 1938 (hmn, was global warming America’s fault then too?), and the last major storm before that was 117 years previously in 1821 (more a smoking musket than a smoking gun, don’t you think?)—the only hurricane in modern times known to have passed directly over parts of New York City (according to LiveScience.com).
Yes, there is a chance that New York could be struck by a hurricane. Every year there is a chance that New York could be hit by a hurricane. But, surely the fact that it hasn’t been struck by a hurricane in the last 20 years, or by a major hurricane in the last 70 years, or directly by a major hurricane in 180 years, makes it more likely than the fact that it hasn’t been struck in the last two.
At least the Independent stopped short of predicting the felling of New York’s skyscrapers like the boffins at icWales.
Scenes from the blockbuster film The Day After Tomorrow may prove to be uncomfortably close to the truth after American scientists rated New York as the fifth most hurricane-threatened area in the country
The film, which saw the city submerged by a giant tidal wave, could soon be replicated in real life, with potentially devastating consequences.
Nigel Rhodes, of Stormforce, warned that a hurricane any bigger than Katrina or Rita could bring the city’s famous skyscrapers crashing down, with many only designed to withstand a category three storm.
Thank god I live in Brooklyn.
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This is a great example of un-scientific reporting. I particularly like the phrase ‘targeted by hurricanes’, as if Katrina and Rita decided that the Gulf Coast were in for a good going over - maybe when Katrina were but a young breeze she was denied entry to some fancy New Orleans bar and has had it in for them ever since. Also, just to be a super pedant, last year’s hurricanes have no influence over this year’s, so the probability of a hurricane in New York this year is the same as it was last year, excluding climate change.
For a more scientific view, visit the nice guys at the National Hurricane Center. There was similar reporting in the UK after a tornado hit Birmingham (a cause for celebartion, surely).