Weather.com’s Phony Cat-5 Hurricane Record

About an hour ago I posted an objection to a Weather.com article entitled: Hurricane Dorian Becomes the 5th Atlantic Category 5 in 4 Years. Then I deleted it.

When I first read the Weather.com article it appeared that the headline was what they were claiming was a record.

If so, then it was wrong because the 1930s also had a stretch of four years with five Category-5 Atlantic hurricanes.

I had not heard about the claim until my interview last evening (hosted by Martha McCallum):

But it turns out that (reading carefully) what they claim is a record (which appears so) is that we have now had a stretch of four consecutive years with at least one Cat-5 hurricane.

I claim that is a contrived statistic.

Which is more significant in a “climate change” context: that in 1933-34, there were two Cat-5 storms (both in 1933) or in 2018-2019 there were also two Cat-5 storms, but one in each year? Because that what this boils down to.

I think those would be considered equal in a climate context. In statistics, you can always find some insignificant way of slicing and dicing the data to make a certain time period look “unique”.

The recent 11+ year period (2006-2016) with no major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. (an unprecedented event) was in my opinion less contrived of a statistic, but since it didn’t fit the global warming narrative, few people are aware of it.

If you think the Weather.com claim is legitimate and related to climate change, let me ask you: Is global warming really spreading out Cat-5 hurricanes across the years, so multiple ones don’t occur in the same year? Because that’s the only difference between the 1930’s “record” and the current “record.”

The important thing is that the main conclusion as represented by the title of their article (Hurricane Dorian Becomes the 5th Atlantic Category 5 in 4 Years) does not represent a record. It also happened in the 1930s, as shown by the chart in their article:

Read more at Dr. Roy’s Blog