“Hard To Believe” Rita Cosby

Last week, Rita Cosby talked about 50 foot waves in Galveston that didn’t exist. In USA Today, she says she has covered 30 hurricanes. But in an e-mail to TVNewser, Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel questions her comments:

“I was covering the hurricane in Galveston and the waves breaking on shore were running 12, maybe 14 feet or so on Friday and Friday night. The offshore buoys SE and SW of Galveston were reporting 18 footers during the height of the storm. One other thing to note: Once the wind starting blowing offshore later Friday the Gulf of Mexico never touched the 15′ sea wall that protects part of Galveston. In fact, some locals were saying that they hadn’t seen the water that far out in a long time. On Saturday morning the Gulf was a good 75 yards from the seawall, thanks to Rita land falling to our east. And if I counted every tropical storm AND hurricane I’ve covered for The Weather Channel the past ten years I may have seen 40-50.

So with all due respect to Ms. Cosby, I find several quotes in that article extremely hard to believe.”