Center Of A Storm
Fortunately the Atlantic Basin continues to be quiet because the National Hurricane Center definitely isn’t.
The new head of the center, Bill Proenza, is attempting to remake things in his own image, and, as Dr. Jeff Masters reports, he is meeting with a lot of resistance from both above and below.
This is Supervision/Management 101, a new boss making too many changes, too quickly when taking over an established organization. Everything should have been left until after the season was over in December. People need time to adjust, especially when they have been working together as a team for more than a decade.
It isn’t just that Proenza is reordering priorities, he is doing it based on what some feel is weak scientific justification.
Hopefully everyone will calm down enough to provide the necessary forecasts that those in those of us in the coastal areas depend on for personal planning.
4 comments
quite the kerfuffle.
i came away from reading those transcripts with a couple of impressions: scinetists doan talk so gud, and media types are still science illiterates, not to mention that they apparently [newsflash] misquote their sources.
out of all that, i never did figure who’s espousing exactly which science, or how good the science really is or isn’t. the fact that all those long-time well-behaved government scientists felt moved to speak to the press at all suggests trouble looms for those of us who are potential hurricane fodder this summer.
probably we should all pray real hard for lots of african dust storms this year.
As near as I can tell, the oldtimers are concerned that Proenza will push Congress into providing a new satellite that is the duplicate of the existing satellite with none of the improved capabilities currently available, and that some of the money will be taken from programs and equipment that they feel is more vital in the last 48 hours before landfall, like the Hurricane Hunter flights.
Like every other useful government program, the National Hurricane Center has been subjected to budget trimming.
So far we have been blest with high wind shear that is keeping things under control.
Proenza is out.
Gracias.