Hurricane Season and WA

The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane season is upon us. The first few weeks of September is the peak of the season and the probability of the highest number of hurricane formation occurs at this time of the year. Many of you may have seen or heard the effect of Hermine last week. It started in the Gulf of Mexico as a Tropical Depression, intensified to a Category I hurricane, just before making landfall in Florida’s big bend. After making landfall, the storm lost power and once again become a tropical storm. As is usually the case, one expects that to be the end of the storm. However, after crossing the Florida Peninsula, it started reforming in the Atlantic Ocean and once again threatened the eastern seaboard of the United States. The force of the wind and resulting storm surge is driving the waves and water to land causing flooding, and destruction.

Mother Nature is so unpredictable. In a way, so are many of our members’ customers. I suppose, just like any website we are at the mercy of the whims of the customers and the public and their interests. One never knows when the next viral video, the next new product will show up. Once it does, it takes over the news cycle (and the internet for days) until it fades as the next video gains popularity. We can do a lot to improve our site, working on Google Analytics, and other similar tools. Computer models developed in recent years to forecast weather are very sophisticated. In spite of all these progress, the storms’ behavior continue to be somewhat unpredictable.

The bottom line is that in many ways, the business we are in is similar to the science behind weather forecasting.