Were Isaias Forecasts Accurate?

While Isaias had briefly strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane, it weakened to Category 2 by the time it made landfall on Friday evening in Destin, Fla., with winds up to 105 miles per hour. Since then, as is typical for hurricanes after landfall, Isaias has been downgraded multiple times. By early Saturday morning, it had dropped to a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 65 m.p.h., according to the National Weather Service. Still, the hurricane caused pain. Four people were killed in storm-related accidents across Florida and Alabama, officials said. On social media, however, some have questioned whether the initial forecasts were off, posting videos from home showing relatively minor damage and minimal impacts. Arinton Mercado, 39, saw things differently. Driving his truck around Pensacola, Fla., Mr. Mercado said he saw downed trees, fences and power lines, as well as homes with missing roofs and blown-in doors. Mr. Mercado, who works for a home-remodeling contractor, was towing a trailer to help a friend whose home had been damaged. “We are about to be swamped Monday with calls,” he said. Around 600,000 customers remained without electricity in Alabama, Florida and Georgia as of early Saturday afternoon, down from about 900,000 in the morning, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.com. In Destin, where the National Weather Service had initially warned of storm surge between six and nine feet, a gauge on Saturday measured closer to four feet, said Jason Beaman, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Mobile, Ala., which covers the western Florida Panhandle. “The storm surge for our area was not as high as forecast, and that was simply because the track of the storm moved more over into the Destin area, which gave most of our area an offshore wind,” he said. The surge damage was still being assessed, but Mr. Beaman noted that his team had “seen significant wind impacts from the storm.” Mr. Beaman said that he felt the National Hurricane Center’s forecasts were “very good,” adding that the minor shifts were “completely normal in a tropical event.” “They were forecasting just below major hurricane intensity before landfall, and it got to a low-end Category 3,” Mr. Beaman said. “So you’re only talking about 10 miles per hour worth of difference in the intensity forecast.” He also cautioned that those who had been missed by the storm should not be lulled into a false sense of security. A longtime Gulf Coast resident, Mr. Beaman empathized with the stressful, costly and time-consuming effort that is preparing for a storm that may ultimately not come one’s way. “For those in areas that did not get the worst impacts, hopefully they feel thankful, but hopefully they still feel encouraged to prepare for the next one, because the next one may not go easy for them,” Mr. Beaman said. Judson Jones and Amy Graff contributed research.