widespread damage. it was a roulette storm. you may have been unscathed and still have power. it s one that isn t fair. not one set area. with all due respect and still continuing the coverage of flash flooding in new england we want to bring in our weather channel hurricane expert dr. richard knabb. it s important for us to grade ourselves and say what we have learned so i don t know if you re comfortable enough giving yourselves a grade on what you predicted and take us what you learned. the track forecast was a little bit better than the forecast of the strength. the intensity forecasting has been a challenge for decades and, in fact, we really haven t gotten any better at it over the last several decades. kind of flat lined on improvements. there are signs of hope that with more data coming from aircraft inside the hurricane getting into better models that in the coming years we might be
lose power, it s no big deal. that s what s going to happen up and down the seaboard. some people will get hit by the trees, some won t. here s what we re looking at currently. the storm itself, honestly, does not look that impressive. this time yesterday, they were talking for a storm to be approaching the outer banks and making landfall, this is not that impressive. there s a lot of strong thunderstorms and heavy rain from the eastern north carolina coastline much the water is going to start ponding up. as far as looks go on this the west side of this very weak. if you re in raleigh, you re loving the radar. a lot of the heavy rain is going to miss you and get mostly in extreme eastern north carolina. the storm itself, you can t see it anymore because of the sun went down. the clouds will go up to new york city. even though the storm is down in north carolina, shows you how big the storm is. that s the legacy. going to take a long time to clear this out. about 36 to 48 hours from now
normally stay here and ride out the storm, almost part of local culture. this time, because of the threat with the storm surge, the size of the storm, they were going to leave. some actually did for the first time. they boarded up and left. old timers saying i never left before, i m not leaving now. they re still here. the emergency managers are looking at each other. the managers told them, if anything happens here in terms of any of those people getting in trouble at the height of the storm, the ambulance drivers and fire and police officers couldn t help themment. they re on their own. they could be trapped because of the flooding depending what happens to the road. what about the trifecta of local, state and federal going on post irene? i think that s actually been very good. i ve heard no complaints about that at all. i ve talked to the local
for those computer models that predict the hurricane s path and its intensity, constantly sending their results to the national hurricane center in miami. john talbot, the chief meteorologist has flown into more than 150 eyewalls over 26 years. the most critical element is geographic position of the storm. if you don t know where it started, you don t know where it will finish. during our 11-hour flight, researchers released a dozen highly sensitive probes with gps built in. they fall toward the ocean with a tiny parachute, relaying back vital information including humidity, pressure, wind speed and temperature. thinking about six right. reporter: upfront, the commander guides us through blinding clouds. everything you learn as a pilot, an aviator is to leave bad weather. we do just the opposite. reporter: we are about to show you something very few people see up close, the hurricane s eyewall.
ground. unfortunately, a lot of people we talked to today said they were going to ride this thing out. this is an area that s used to these storms. they ve been through storms before and they say they don t have a problem with waiting to see what happens. unfortunately, what the forecasters and emergency managers are saying here, most haven t been through a storm like this, and if they have, it s been decades. the big concern is not only the wind, but the water. we talked about it all day and all night. the storm surge will be very strong. it s the rain. the outer banks flood with a heavy rain. now they will be pounded with this wind-driven rain for 10, maybe 12 hours. it s going to push water into places it s never been before. there are a lot of people who are worried about exactly what that water will do. as we walk back up and along the pier in and closer in between the dunes, the wind calms down.