Hurricane Hilary Unprecedented? The BBC Would Like You To Think So
By Paul Homewood
There are huge amounts of misinformation in this BBC report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-66566483
The BBC want you to think this is all record breaking and unprecedented. It is not.
Hilary is a very similar event to the 1939 tropical storm, El Cordonazo,which followed a similar path and dumped similar amounts of rain.
Indeed that was one of four tropical storms to hit Southern California in 1939, although the others did not make landfall.
So much for the silly little theory from Ms Treseder, our ecology expert. Maybe the BBC should get advice from proper hurricane experts in future, who would tell them that these storms are rare, but sometimes happen.
The claims about record rainfall are bogus as well. The BBC focus heavily on “record rainfall” in Palm Springs, but even that is a fake claim. They say that 3.18” fell on Sunday, but that was less than the 3.22” recorded in 1926:
In any event, one cherry picked station does not prove anything at all, The BBC also claim that this was the wettest August day on record:
This, of course, is utterly dishonest, as it was nowhere being a record in Los Angeles, or California as a whole, merely a record for August at most.
In Los Angeles, for instance, daily rainfall of 2” is nothing unusual at all:
As for California’s wettest day, this is an outright fraud .Hilary dumped 11” or so up in the mountains, but at lower levels it was around 2 or 3” at most, as the BBC map indicates:
http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc4.html
But the 1939 storm was much more devastating, with 5” in Los Angeles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_California_tropical_storm
And the devastation from Kathleen in 1976 was even greater:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Kathleen
Rainfall from Hilary has not reached anything like the 375mm recorded in 1976.
So once again we find that the BBC can get away with playing fast and loose with the facts, just so that it can promote its political agenda.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I never believe any BBC report these days. The BBC has become totally unreliable and fact-free.
They usually get the date and day right! 🙂
Even with date and day from the BBC, I’d always cross check with another source.
You can guarantee when the lame stream lap dogs lead with “Unprecedented” everything that follows is pure unadulterated, exaggerated bullsh*t!!
When the BBC says something is “controversial”, you can be sure the BBC hates it. For example, wind farms and solar farms are never described as controversial, whereas fracking is always described as controversial.
an exemption
Prog today calls ULEZ controversial
There’s no controversy about ULEZ. It’s simply scientifically unsupportable. That has been known to be the case for years. Euan Mearns picked it apart here
https://euanmearns.com/mortality-from-diesel-car-pollution-in-the-uk/
Recent work merely confirms his conclusions.
You’ve only just noticed? The Biased Brainwashing Cult, is very viewed through the comments of the decreasing number of people who still watch it and then come to complain to everyone else how bad it is.
Good heavens no! It has just got steadily worse since before Climategate.
I’ve been to California many times but rarely in the summer. The first thing I noticed about the roads is that they have pronounced gullies on the sides of their roads and traversing some of their roads is often like going over a huge speed hump. They are built that way for a very good reason because when they get heavy rain it can come quickly and can be tropical. I mean super heavy. The roads can be awash in no time flat and that when they need to get rid of the water quickly, hence the gullies and the storm drains which are built like canals. Our road drainage would be quickly overwhelmed. I’ll leave the records and data to others but it is clear that tropical storms are not new in California.
Huh, Simply go check for yourselves, and see what’s LIKELY to be coming: the PROBABILITY of events, rather than the stupid Forecasts by the BBC and their cohort. Ref. https://www.weatherbell.com/ Joe’s Saturday briefing is easy to understand.
It appears that Professor Treseder is an expert in Fungi and Ecosystem Ecology, her meteorologic expertise however is not recorded in her publication list.
The very point of an ‘expert’ called upon by the BBC is that they are not qualified in the area under discussion but have opinions that fit the approved narrative.
Don’t forget the authority figure title. The BBC treat the public as morons who all must therefore be impressed by the title “professor” or “expert” and by default accept the persons title to mean whatever they say carries weight and beyond reproach. Notice the BBC never ever inform of their field of knowledge. This is deliberate.
This is pure theatre a la BBC straight out of the Kremlin playbook. Just like their Climate and Science Reporter Georgina Rannard who’s education is in Modern History, who informed us all that climate change causes global warming, I kid you not!
The cynical and manipulative attitude of the BBC towards the public for political purposes has no bounds.
On 24 Sep 1939, Indio Fire Station (about 18 miles SSE of Palm Springs) received 6.45″ from that 1939 “Long Beach Tropical Storm.”
“Rains washed away a 150-foot (46 m) section of the Southern Pacific Railroad near Indio, and a stretch of the Santa Fe main line near Needles. Crop damage in the Coachella Valley reached 75%.” –Wikipeedya.
‘Climate change is in large parts responsible for this storm’
Wut? How is that? An absurd, even juvenile, assertion.
‘says prof Kathleen Treseder, from the University of California, Irvine’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department.’
Oh, she’s a professional.
‘It increases the frequency and intensity of the El Niño weather phenomenon’
[citation needed]
Even if true, which it’s clearly not, that does not explain this event. Something becoming (allegedly) more frequent is NOT A CAUSE.
‘Which leads to warmer waters in the Pacific Ocean and ultimately generates suitable conditions for these storms.’
Conditions are suitable EVERY GD YEAR.
“This is a 100 year storm and we’re getting a lot of 100 year events here,” Treseder says”
Fact free assertion.
‘adding that more events of this scope are to be expected in coming years’
Gross speculation. Evidence free gross speculation. She states it as proven fact. The future is known, she tells us.
‘”Whenever we have an extreme event like this now I tell myself this is not gonna be a one-off, likely we are gonna have more and it may even be worse,” she says.’
Tell yourself anything you want, you silly rabbit.
This hurricane formed in the eastern Pacific. Happens every year. Several times a year (remember Dora?). They usually head west, toward Hawaii. This time, low pressure off shore, and high pressure in the Great Plains, formed a nip which pulled the storm north, instead of the usual west.
‘Climate change,’ whatever the hell that means, did not create a high pressure to the east and a low pressure to the west. Her assertions are childish. Unprofessional.
I’m curious how a state that’s had a very long drought can have had a number of very heavy rainstorms recently? And you can have three hundred year storms in five years…you just won’t get another for 500 years. Like so many Alarmists, she parrots the claims without any understanding of them.
GC, I note from her wiki page that she is both a politician and serious feminism activist. She managed to oust “her president and chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Treseder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_J._Ayala
Seems she is rather a nasty piece of work but clearly ticks all the right boxes for the BBC
Science may advance when she is no longer involved. Meantime, it is going backwards. Her claims are full of buzzword nonsense.
She is preening for Klaus Schwab.
“… Human influence has not affected the principal tropical modes of
interannual climate variability (Table TS.4) and their associated
regional teleconnections beyond the range of internal variability
(high confidence). It is virtually certain that the El Niño–Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) will remain the dominant mode of interannual
variability in a warmer world. There is no consensus from models for
a systematic change in amplitude of ENSO sea surface temperature
(SST) variability over the 21st century in any of the SSP scenarios
assessed (medium confidence). …”
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)
Working Group I (WGI)
Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis
Page 114
Mariana spring should be all over this article with its misinformation and untruths she is their conspiracy Guru after all
Sent from my iPhone
>
The science says this event is nothing to do with climate change. It is a one-off isolated weather event.
The climate change scenarios for California is given below, this is based on the accepted climate models and expert analysis.
The scenario assessment does not predict or include rainfall and flood events like Hilary.
https://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/overview/
When are BBC Verify reporters going to start fact-checking the BBC? Goodness knows, it’s needed!
YouGov poll shows that the BBC is not as trusted as it (probably) imagines:
Very Trustworthy 14%
Trustworthy 30%
Neither Trustworthy Nor Untrustworthy 24%
Do Not Know 10%
Untrustworthy 12%
Very Untrustworthy 10%
I suspect that the BBC lost the respect of a significant minority of Right-wingers during the Covid-19 affair.
I also suspect that the 30% who merely think it “Trustworthy” are mainly Left-wingers, who approve the BBC when it is confirming their prejudices but revert to regarding it as “Establishment” when it shows some impartiality. In other words, if the BBC did ever stop banging on about Climate these people would just go elsewhere for their fix of confirmatory nonsense. This 30% is the part of the population who are twisting Society their way. It is a hard nut to crack.
I think there are still a lot of ignorant people who think the BBC is still the respected organisation it used to be decades ago. The same applies to the Met Office with people still thinking it is an independent organisation, not a part of a government department.
The Met Office left its objectivity behind in Bracknell. Moving to Exeter they got infected by the woke virus present in the only (until the next General Election?) Labour seat in the South West
“…part of a government department…”
When it wants to be. When it approves of the government’s complexion.
I came across a fascinating clip of Harrabin’s acceptance speech for his hon. Doctorate from Cranfield. He offered the idea that telling 73% truth is good enough, on the grounds that it is better than not saying anything.
It’s an interesting way to justify wrapping a 27% of story propaganda lie in a clothing of truth to enhance its credibility, and an insight into his mindset.
“Better than not saying anything” is exactly why journalists are such a self centred bunch of hypocrites. They are driven solely by seeing their name as the byline and the bigger the headline the more their fragile little egos are inflated. So the motivation to exaggerate is always present.
Amazingly, even the Guardian is a little more balanced than the BBC regarding Storm Hilary:
Link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/21/california-hilary-storm-climate-crisis-explainer
Mark,
Oh no! Swain’s at it again. Emily Atkin is going to be furious.
https://heated.world/p/the-real-story-behind-abcs-hawaii
erratum. I should have said almost never. In this case they let the cat out of the bag, because clearly the BBC arts graduate Klymutt cyense opinion piece writer is impressed. We are likewise told to accept the OPINION of a professor from a department which has no relevance or authority to pronounce on this subject. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dept. BE IMPRESSED PROLES!
“…no relevance or authority to pronounce on this subject.”
Curiously, the IMF recently cancelled a presentation for their staff, to be given by a sceptical* scientist. He was merely the recipient of a Nobel Prize in Physics. This was doubly curious, as anyone who has studied both Physics and Meteorology knows that almost everything in Meteorology is applied Physics – and anything which is not Physics is Chemistry!
* Professor Clausen. Of course, keeping the little minds at the IMF well and truly closed is the aim. Of all the astonishing reasons possible, the man who cancelled him said that Clausen would too technical and hard to understand.
What part of “Bullshit!” would he not understand?
https://www.newsweek.com/nobel-prize-winner-who-doesnt-believe-climate-crisis-has-speech-canceled-1815020
Ex Hurricane Hilary made landfall in southern California as a tropical cyclone. 1 hour 17 minutes later it was downgraded to a post tropical cyclone, but the MSM still ran with the headline ‘first tropical cyclone to hit California in eight decades’. As Paul points out, the rainfall from this post tropical cyclone is not unprecedented either. There’s nothing unusual about Storm Hilary.
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/hurricane-hilary-whats-in-a-headline
So it’s taken 80 years for Californian climate to get back to where it was…
‘as a tropical storm’ I should have said. A tropical cyclone IS a hurricane.
The WMO can’t resist joining in with the fun, I reccomend you raise your bullshit shields to maximum before reading.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/extreme-weather-new-norm
PS most of the WMO news brief is about forecasts and provisional records which turned out to be inaccurate. Not quite sure how a forecast is News.
The WMO is part of the UN and is a co-founder of IPCC, along with UNEP.
12pm R4 Call You & Yours: What impact are low emission zones having on you?
BBC phonelines have gatekeeping systems. Your past calls automatically flash up, so you may be listed as a baddie
Dear Lying, Fascist BBC,
What impact are low emission zones having on you?
Massive and Life Changing.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Mulholland
Proud Climate Change Denier
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip-Mulholland
From a friend who lives in Palm Desert: …we received around 3 inches of rain and winds 40-50mph with a few stronger gusts. We had no damage, but I spent about 5 hours cleaning up the mess of pine needles and leaves in the pool and yard.
Hardly worth talking about…
I do love the claim about increasing frequency! A 100 year event happens ON AVERAGE once every hundred years. So in 1,000 years, there will be ten. But they aren’t evenly spaced out. So we need at least 500 years to have some idea. It’s so absurdyet the BBC treats scientists making stupid, false statements as prophets.
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/100yearflood.html
“The term “100-year flood” is used in an attempt to simplify the definition of a flood that statistically has a 1-percent chance of occurring in any given year. Likewise, the term “100-year storm” is used to define a rainfall event that statistically has this same 1-percent chance of occurring. In other words, over the course of 1 million years, these events would be expected to occur 10,000 times. But, just because it rained 10 inches in one day last year doesn’t mean it can’t rain 10 inches in one day again this year.”
Exactly. And when did these 100 year periods start and finish? They didn’t because thats not what it means. These supposed scientists have no idea of the basic concepts they use. The 1% chance is independent of what happened the previous year.
Under simplified assumptions the probability of no recurrence in N years becomes 0.99^N. So that’s about a 5% chance of a recurrence within 5 years, 9.6% within 10 years, 22.2% within 25 years, 39.5% within 50 years but still only 63.4% within 100 years. There’s a 4.9% chance of going 300 years with no recurrence.
The Poisson process and distribution is one of the simplest and most useful concepts in statistics. Once understood, it answers so many questions. Alas, since even the Normal distribution is a step too far for most Arts graduates, and few Science graduates will even remember the Poisson distribution a few years after staggering uncomprehendingly though their obligatory cook-book courses in statistics, I doubt that a single M.P. does understand
it.
Argumentum ad verecundiam. Argument from an authority in an unrelated field. An appeal to “awe.”
“This fallacy occurs when a person appeals to a false authority as evidence for a claim. These fallacious arguments from authority are the result of citing a non-authority as an authority.”
The people they roll out have ‘prestige’. We see this all the time with government committees inviting people with ‘prestige’ to come and be questioned with the idea that MPs will become more informed. Sadly ‘prestige’ does not equate to ‘knowledge’ and our MPs are generally too ignorant to ask the right questions anyway. It happened a lot during Brexit where people with ‘prestige’ were given airtime or print space to demonstrate their ignorance on aspects of how the EU worked leaving people less informed than they had been.
In fact, Dr Treseder is not attempting to inform us. She is auditioning for a position in the Wannsee Economic Forum’s World Government. She is proclaiming she will say whatever they want her to say.
She has no soul.
Climate: the silly science.
Imagine professors of English making biology pronouncements.
The BBC were obligated to interview and quote Kathleen Treseder. She ticks every required box, highly political, ultra feminist activist with powerful track record, suitably unqulaified in meteorology to comment and one of their cult.
From Jimmy Wales dis/mis/information website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Treseder#Activism_work
This is the man she got rid of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_J._Ayala
Nasty piece of work this Kathleen Treseder – typical climate activist.
The BBC is in Portland Place, London. Every day, despite the worst efforts of Sadiq Kahn, hundreds of vehicles pass by the BBC building and leave clouds of tyre and brake particulates. When they go for coffee around the corner, they breathe it all in, and I’m sure it’s addled their brains.
We were told that getting rid of lead in petrol would make the next generation smarter. I’m starting to believe it wasin fact the opposite, and lead makes you more clever.
I believe tetraethyllead was one of the greatest inventions of all time. I read many years ago that using TEL to get octane up, instead of more highly refining the fuel, saved 6%. 6% of U.S. oil is probably more than a hundred countries have ever used in their entire existence. I wish I knew what that is in cubic elephants.
I never bought the theory that the trace amounts of lead in exhaust gases were enough to affect anyone.
The Left has a LNT view of lead. People can have some lead without any affect at all. Dangerous levels are rare.
Aside: I knew some people from Ethyl Corporation when I worked up in Richmond. Good people. They are still in business making fuel additives, but probably not much TEL anymore.
‘Hurricane’ Hilary wasn’t even a hurricane when it made landfall.
Hilary was downgraded to a tropical storm a few hours before making landfall, as rain from the storm started spreading in Southern California, the National Weather Service said. Then it was downgraded again, to a post-tropical cyclone early Monday morning. The system was expected to dissipate later in the day but still produce heavy rainfall, significant flooding and gusty winds across the western U.S.
As of 8 a.m. PDT Monday, Hilary was about 115 miles west-northwest of Elko, Nevada, and racing north-northeast at 24 mph with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-hilary-2023-path-storm-california-forecast/
Gusty winds! 35 mph! Unprecedented?
Having spent some time in the desert SW of the US in the 1990s, the phenomenon of the ‘summer monsoon’ was a feature of the climate. Perhaps not in California itself – usually – but slightly further east in Arizona, you had to be prepared for flooding on desert roads (where there were no bridges across ‘washes’) and as a hiker you were cautioned about entering ‘slot canyons’ in any of the desert states because of the risk of flash floods. Drownings did occur each year. Typically these floods were caused either by tropical storms coming north from the west coast of Mexico (as in this case), or sometimes from tropical storms or former hurricanes coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes also it was just isolated thunderstorms.
There has to be a reson for the massive flood drains alongside the highways in LA?
Albert Hammond noted the same in the 1970s: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXkk65PdKyM
“Seems it never rains in Southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours”
Yeah, but he nearly made it.
Hilary’s poor performance was due to Russian interference.
Tick VG. As we (some) Brits say.
Check out the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Hilary here. This must surely be the worst storm in history.
https://babylonbee.com/news/check-out-these-devastating-pictures-of-hurricane-hilarys-aftermath
This is so funny. I live in San Diego and it was the biggest nothingburger. Yes it rained all day Sunday, but not hard rain, more like drizzle, and no flooding near me (when it usually floods every winter from rain). The wind wasn’t bad either, about 5-10 mph.
Most reports from the BBC which seem to be directed towards climate change are sensationalist. The BBC remit is that they should be impartial. In many areas of reporting they are very much less than impartial and certainly don’t give an alternative view if it doesn’t agree with their agenda.