In the middle of one of the biggest natural disasters in the history of the United States, MSNBC’s questionable anchor Katy Tur couldn’t help but push the climate change agenda. Tur was interviewing Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (D) on Tuesday when she made multiple dubious claims about climate science designed to stoke the fears of viewers.
Tur’s first assertion was that we should probably do away with the term “hurricane season.” “Governor, we're just in August. Hurricane season-- if you want to say there is a hurricane season any longer cause we see these things in all seasons-- lasts for a couple more months,” she told Edwards.
But that’s not entirely accurate according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. According to the climate monitoring organization’s own data, it’s natural for some storms to occur outside of hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30. But they happen rarely with 97 percent occurring during the “season,” which notably lasts for the seasons of summer and the fall. NOAA's own data shows that between 1851 and 2015 only 13 hurricanes had formed out of season.
As rare as hurricanes are outside of season, them hitting the U.S. is even rarer. Again, according to NOAA’s own data, the last hurricane to strike the U.S. outside of season occurred in May of 1908! That’s 109 years ago!
Tur then parroted climate alarmist Al Gore and claimed the storms were getting stronger and would continue to do so. “Climate scientists will tell you that storms are only going to get more aggressive, we're going to see more extreme weather in the years to come,” she prefaced to Edwards before asking about his state’s readiness.
First of all, NOAA’s own data shows that the number of hurricanes that have been generated has remained stable since 2005. Only 2010 and 2012 had seen 10 or more hurricanes, while there had been years that only saw 2, 3, or 4 hurricanes.
In the last 12 years, only 11 hurricanes had effected the U.S. Ten of those storms were either category 1s or category 2s. The only one that wasn’t either of those was Hurricane Harvey, which was a category 4 storm and was the first category 4 storm to hit the U.S. since 2004. The years of 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2015 all had ZERO hurricanes strike the country. These numbers were provided by NOAA’s own data yet again.
The data provided by NOAA clearly disproves all of Tur’s dubious assertions about hurricanes and climate change. These easily debunked claims are embarrassing for Tur, especially considering she has a long and documented history of making false statements about reality. Today’s questionable declaration could be described as Tur’s “in all seasons” moment.
(H/T The Washington Free Beacon)
Transcript below:
MSNBC Live
August 29, 2017
2:29:37 PM Eastern(…)
KATY TUR: Governor, we're just in August. Hurricane season-- if you want to say there is a hurricane season any longer cause we see these things in all seasons-- lasts for a couple more months. This is a big one. Are you ready if there's going to be another one? Can you handle this?
JOHN BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, we're going to handle it, and look. Nobody is going to get through a storm this size and the severity of Harvey unscathed. Our hearts go out to the folks in Texas, and we’re sure to keep them in our thoughts and prayers and sending assistance as we can.
But I want you to know that the President and his team, especially FEMA administrator Brock Long, we've been in constant contact. I've actually had multiple face to face meetings with the FEMA administrator just since he came online in June. So we feel like our federal partners are there with us, and leaning forward with us. And we're going to do whatever we have to protect the people of our state.
Unfortunately -- of course, it's a good thing when you need it. We have a lot of experience with hurricanes and with other floods. We're just a year removed from record thousand year flooding in Louisiana last August. That was not a tropical storm or a named storm at all. So we have a lot of experience and what we're seeing play out on TV right now in Texas, is something all too familiar with us in Louisiana.
TUR: And Governor, to that point, climate scientists will tell you that storms are only going to get more aggressive, we're going to see more extreme weather in the years to come. Given that, are you confident that enough has been done to prepare in the long term, that enough is in place and the funding is there to make sure that cities in these coastal areas, especially cities on the gulf are equipped in a way to deal with these strengthening storms?
(…)
