Tropical Storm remnants expected to hit SoCal Sunday (Update: Game will go as scheduled)

Some people are relying on hindsight to say "see, it was no big deal." The NWS, state, county and local officials don't have the advantage of relying on hindsight.

The models showed a much heavier rain and flooding event was highly likely for Los Angeles. The wise thing to do is follow those models. It's the best we've got for predicting the future, even though it's not 100%.

The storm changed speed and it's path kept veering from the consensus of the models late Friday through Saturday as it grew closer to Los Angeles. That's why it was less damaging than forecast for Los Angeles county. The NWS, state, county and local officials have to plan for what they models are predicting/forecasting to be the most likely outcome.

If you're forced to bet your life and all of your possession on the spin of a roulette table, do you take a chance on getting lucky hitting a specific number or do you take your chances with either red or black? The NWS, state, county and local officials have to make a bet against everyone's lives and possessions, so they have to go with the best odds according to the forecast models. To do anything else would be grossly negligent.

The media does hype the storm, but so do individuals. Someone says we should be cautious and err on the side of safety, then someone else comes in blasting about how that's ridiculous, while they ignore the best forecast models and data that we have. That leads to push back and then it turns into a back & forth, with people arguing at each other from the extreme positions of "it's apocalyptic" vs "it's nothing at all."

I find it to be in particularly poor taste to be saying "I told you so that it wouldn't be bad here/there," because Los Angeles getting lucky with getting hit less than forecast means that other areas got it worse than forecast. The worst of it hit different areas, it didn't just magically disappear.

Today, a lot of people in Los Angeles are not suffering as much as they thought they might be. I'm one of those people and I consider myself fortunate. The flip side of that is that a lot of people are suffering worse than they expected too. But, hey, don't let that ruin anyone's joy of gloating with an "I told you so, me smart, everyone else dumb."