Hurricanes are extremely volatile events, highly sensitive to local conditions. They form quickly, their strengths can rise and fall rapidly, and their paths are can veer abruptly. Given all that, it is quite remarkable how weather scientists are able to predict things about them as much as they can. But because of their volatility, these predictions necessarily lack absolute certainty and contain margins of error. Unfortunately, many people do not appreciate this fact and when events turn out differently from what was announced, they tend to feel that either the forecasters were incompetent or that they were deliberately misled. (In my book The Great Paradox of Science, I spend considerable time making the case that teaching students and adults about the uncertainty inherent in almost all scientific measurements is an important element in understanding the nature of science. But unfortunately, very little time is spent on it.)

While it is true that commercial news stations tend to hype storms and issue dire warnings because that increases ratings, the scientists who do the actual work behind the scenes try to be as sober and objective as possible. But they do have an obligation to provide the full range of options to policymakers. People who need to make policy recommendations to deal with such events have no choice but to prepare for worst case scenarios so that people can take the necessary precautions, even if those are extreme like mass evacuations from danger zones.

When the event turns out to not be as bad as the worst case scenarios, this is greeted initially with sighs of relief by pretty much everyone. But as time passes, some express irritation that they took all these costly precautions for nothing, or so they think. They seem to think that the forecasters should have somehow known what the final outcome would be before the event itself. The more extreme people even think that they were deliberately misled for some nefarious reason. We saw this happen with hurricane Milton, where forecasters predicted the possibility of massive winds and rain and storm surges that could cause catastrophic floods and damage. Luckily the storm, though bad, was not as bad as feared.

What worries me is that because of this lucky break, people might become more skeptical of forecasts and think that the power of these events are always exaggerated. Hence the next time a major hurricane is forecast, more people might ignore the warnings and advice on what to do and decide to stay put, with possibly catastrophic results if the event turns out to be as dire as anticipated.