Weather Headliners: Dr. Michael Brennan

The National Hurricane Center has a new director, Dr Michael Brennan tells us his plans for stepping into this role and how his team is pushing new forecast products forward to help the public make more informed tropical decisions than ever before.

Dr. Jim: Let's talk a little bit about some of the two important changes that we're getting from the National Hurricane Center first is that we now have a seven day outlook instead of a five, explain that to our viewers.

Dr. Brennan: Sure. Yeah, we issue a product called the tropical weather outlook every six hours during actually starting May 15th all the way through the end of November. And it's sort of our day to day situational awareness product. It shows everybody the systems that NHC is looking at that could go on and become a tropical depression or tropical storm. And this year we're extending the period covered by that outlook from five days, which has been for many years now out to seven days, we're giving folks additional heads up additional lead time. Not every system is going to be in the outlook for seven days. There's still some systems that form that, that are not provided as much notice and some of those can actually form pretty close to land. But for systems that we're more confident in that seven day outlook will allow us to give people a little more awareness of something that could go on and, and develop.

Dr. Jim: What kind of development did it take to change from 5 to 7 days? I mean, it sounds like it's a simple thing, but I bet you it was not that simple for you folks at the hurricane center.

Dr. Brennan: Yeah. Well, it's actually something we've been testing for several years. Now. We generally try to do those types of tests in house experimentally and see how our forecasts do for a while before we go public with a new service or extend something out into the future. When you get out to 5-7 days, you're really relying on the model output and our assessment of how, how favorable or unfavorable might be for tropical cyclones to go on and develop.

So we've seen lots of improvements in modeling over the last several years in terms of being able to predict tropical cyclone formation and that's what's allowed us to push those out. Another thing that's different this year is the storm surge forecast and this is something else that's been in the works for quite a few years.

Dr. Brennan: We implemented a new version of NOAA's storm surge model earlier this spring and it does a couple of things. One it allows us to push the real time storm surge forecast information out to about 72 hours in advance of the event. We've been pushing out from 48 to 60 now the 72 hours. So that's three days in advance of an event. It gives people more real time information about the risk from storm surge because that's a time frame in which a lot of decisions are being made in terms of evacuations, other preparedness information. The other change with peace surge this year is it allows us to run a real time forecasts for two hurricanes at the same time. So if we had a storm threatening the gulf coast and a different storm threatening the east coast or Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands,

Dr. Jim: Let's talk a little bit about your journey from coming in to working at the National Hurricane Center, coming all the way up to now being the director, you know, I had a lot of years of experience.

Dr. Brennan: It's forecasting hurricanes leading the hurricane specialist unit through this last several years of, you know, very active hurricane seasons in terms especially for impacts to the United States, multiple major hurricane landfalls. So now stepping into the director role, you know, I have that sort of higher level responsibility, but, you know, it's really the staff here.

Dr. Brennan: We have a federal staff of about 45 to 50 people who really make this place work and they put their heart and soul into every, every word of every product that comes out of this building. And we all take it so seriously and it's, you know, it's just a huge mission that we're all very proud of and we're all very dedicated to.

Dr. Jim: This is your first year as the director of the National Hurricane Center. So how has your year changed over the last little bit?

Dr. Brennan: I sort of stepped into the role in early April, sort of right in the middle of our outreach and run up to the hurricane season being out there leading the messaging efforts and getting people aware and sort of helping to spread the message about the risks that are associated with hurricanes both here in the United States.

Dr. Brennan: We have a big role in the international community here in our region in the Caribbean, Central America all the way up to Bermuda and Canada. So we cover a huge area that requires a lot of coordination and effort and you have a great staff here at the Hurricane Center that, that really makes all that happen.

Dr. Jim: You have a lot of people who are working for you tirelessly all year long and now you're in front of the camera and you're the, you're the one that I guess the face that everybody sees and recognizes how does that help you or make it more difficult for you to actually focus on the forecast.

Dr. Brennan: Well, I mean, you know, I'm really helping to voice what everyone else here is putting together. I mean, we have people working on, you know, the hurricane forecast, the storm surge forecast, the forecast for marine hazards, the coordination internationally and domestic, all the messaging all the words, all the watches and warnings that are coordinated, not just from here at the Hurricane Center, but throughout the National Weather service internationally.

So it's, it's really an honor to be able to sort of be the face of that. And you know, my role is, is not just leading the office but effectively communicating that information and that we're communicating to people about the hazards. That's what I really want to focus on is it's the hazards, especially the water hazards, the storm surge, the flooding rainfall that are responsible for most of the fatalities that we see in the United States.

Dr. Jim: One of the greatest concerns that I have when we're trying to communicate these forecasts and to our viewers across the nation is complacency from a lot of our viewers until something is on their doorstep. What would you suggest to folks to help kind of overcome that without also not going too far to kind of over hyping storms? How do we get that middle ground that we can really get people to make better decisions early on

Dr. Brennan: Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with, you know, you got to make sure that everybody knows their risk. I mean, you can see pictures we have lots of visual evidence of the impacts that tropical storms and hurricanes have had in this country in the last several years. You can go back to what happened in southwest Florida and Ian last year. Ida Laura Michael Florence, Harvey, Irma Maria. I mean, there's just a litany of storms that have produced widespread impacts.

And we also have the problem of people moving to hurricane prone areas from areas where they don't have hurricanes. They might not even know what the risk is, but you have to assess your risk. You have to do it every year, know if you live in that storm surge evacuation zone. So you'll know that you might have to leave your home, have that plan in place ahead of the storm because you don't want to be figuring it out in the two or three days as a storm is approaching you, that's going to be hectic enough and stressful enough without having to figure out your plan. You know, and think about your friends and neighbors and loved ones who's gonna need additional help getting ready for the storm evacuating. How are they going to get where they're going to go? You want to have all those plans in place.

Dr. Jim: Dr Brennan, we appreciate the time that you've taken with us. Today, we wish you all the luck in your new position as the head of the National Hurricane Center. And I imagine we'll be talking to you throughout the season. Hopefully not too much simply because we hope that we don't have that many storms, but as we know, it's always a good idea to be prepared again. Thank you for joining us.