I’ve heard people say that in Florida hurricanes always do this, and in Texas they always do that, or in New England they usually act this way. I’ve heard different versions of these statements from many people, who say them with high degrees of certainty.
These statements are not just from misinformed landlubbers. Professional seafarers, too, are quite prone to reciting broad generalizations about what hurricanes (tropical cyclones) will, won’t or are “supposed to do.”
In the Northeast, most hurricanes that at first appear to be worrisome eventually turn and miss the coast entirely, or they just brush it. The curve-inducing Coriolis effect increases with latitude, and hurricanes tend to get picked up by the prevailing upper-level winds (jet streams) of the mid-latitudes known as the “westerlies.” Thus, the storms often curve away from shore. Picture a right-handed golfer hitting off the tee in the Bahamas aimed straight at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It starts out straight and true but slices right and out to sea. And that’s usually exactly what happens with Northeast hurricanes — until it doesn’t. Hurricane Sandy is a classic case, but there are plenty of others.
Beyond the actual physical processes involving winds rotating around a central core, a hurricane isn’t obligated to do anything in particular. They’re partially understood forces of nature, governed by partially understood laws of motion and physics. Only a fool believes that humans will ever have a complete understanding of those laws of nature or anything even close to it.
It’s really easy and dangerous to believe that we know more than we actually do. At one point, 2015’s Hurricane Joaquin was forecast to stop heading to the southwest and reverse course. A ship en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, planned to neatly duck close under it and continue on without delay. The master believed the forecast. Joaquin didn’t do what it was “supposed to do” at the appointed time. The El Faro was lost with all 33 hands.
Be humble, be uncertain, and the life you save might be your own.
