Pleased beyond belief of our new president. One day I will tell the story of how Sharpie-gate ground all the NHC interviews to a halt- we were so lucky Dorian missed the US at peak intensity with that enormous distraction. The worst kind of leader in any dangerous situation!

Well - today is a good day. I was on the NHC floor on shift. A friend texts me about a live interview on CNN about a doctored map. That must be wrong, right? Then the director gets a question live about it- he gave an answer that was so unbelievably smooth....

Then any live interview was asking about the map. Soon any question only cared about what the president did, not a strong hurricane that could seriously impact the US. Then union members started calling...

The senior hurricane specialist did an amazing job filtering it all out as he wrote the advisory. But the drama continued with all the senior management leaving (conference call?), eventually the union president getting involved for a later response. What a nightmare.

Lastly, the exemplary professionalism and dedication to duty should be noted for NWS and NHC staff to get every weather product out despite the drama hurricane swirling around. I’m just glad the Alabama jokes have (mostly) ended on social media!

After re-reading it, maybe it doesn’t sound so bad. But hurricane forecasts aren’t political, so it isn’t good to put a whiff of politics on NHC. The distraction for hours and the shutdown of the media pool- we were quite fortunate no lives were lost in this case.