Husbands and wives on the Coast can carry on a conversation about how the amount of sand in the upper atmosphere along the Atlantic affects the chances a tropical storm will develop.
But the down side is the array of information can be confusing and the social media sites, looking for clicks, tend to hype tropical activity.
Find a trusted source, local emergency managers say.
The National Weather Service is a good one. So is the National Hurricane Center.
It's true that on Wednesday, the Hurricane Center increased the probability to 60 percent that a disorganized cluster of showers and thunderstorms several hundred miles east of the Windward Islands on the eastern edge of the Caribbean will develop into a tropical depression or storm in the next five days. But that's a far cry from a social media forecast — based on only one model — that went viral the same day and had the National Weather Service in Slidell fielding calls all Wednesday from the public and emergency managers.
It was a forecast meteorologists call hype or sensationalizing. Solid forecasts this time of year are based on more than one model, especially when they're predicting an event so far out.
"There was a model of a strong hurricane moving into the Gulf," said Danielle Manning, National Weather Service meteorologist in Slidell. "The model is no longer forecasting that."
She stopped short of calling it irresponsible forecasting. But she did use the word hype.
Wednesday afternoon, the Louisiana Hurricane Center, another trusted source, shared a link warning people not to buy into hype.
"DO NOT follow pages who post model runs over a week out and call it gospel," it warned. "YES we could be dealing with a storm in the Gulf next week but right now that is highly uncertain. Things change quick in the Tropics … a forecast beyond 3 to 4 days out could change easily!"
Emergency Manger Earl Etheridge echoed that. He did his share of fielding questions from worried Jackson Countians, "who heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend."
He got calls from people who said they'd heard "there was a storm out there that's going to get in the Gulf and it's as bad as Katrina."
"Well how can it be as bad as Katrina, when it hasn't even developed yet?" he said.
He warns about self-professed weather professionals.
But he likes the idea of people talking weather daily this time of the year. That's everyone's responsibility — protect themselves and their families, he said.
"It's good to be prepared and watchful," he said. "But there's no reason to run in a panic yet. There's nothing out there to get excited about."
©2014 The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.). Distributed by MCT Information Services.
