The Three Big Things I Took Away From This Week

Michelle Henley, Bob Latino, Ken Latino, and Mark Latino at SMRP 2022

Surprise, Surprise. This year’s national SMRP conference was in my hometown, Raleigh. In my profession, we do not get many national conferences. This week was both convenient and refreshing.

Here are my big takeaways:

Bob, Ken, and Mark Latino are three special people.

The Latino brothers are all technical gurus in their own right. And all three live in the long shadow of their father, Charles, who was one of (maybe the) founding fathers of the reliability profession.

This is the first time the three brothers have been together at a technical conference in many years. Bob considers me a friend, so I got to hang out, eat some meals, and have a few drinks with the three Latino brothers. They were just being themselves, but it was special for me. All three are good people and good brothers.

I never met Charles Latino, but I learned much about him this week. He was not just a great professional. All three of his sons are a testament that he was a great man.

(and bless her, Mrs. Latino was a great, patient woman too!)

Michelle Henley gives a damn good presentation.

I have seen her in action a couple of times now, and each time the material is a little different and I learn a little more. I guess that is why she always plays to a full house. Like the Latino brothers, she comes from a great pedigree (her father was Winston Ledet), but she has cut her own path and added her own unique flair to the profession.

It was good spending some time with her, and I look forward to her upcoming writing on women in reliability and STEM.

Many organizations and roles are changing.

I had the opportunity to lead two well-attended workshops this week and was a bit surprised at the number of people who have recently seen organizational restructuring or changes in their own roles. Perhaps I am either biased or sensitive due to post-COVID effects or the Great Resignation, but there was an increase. Those changes mean, more than ever, we need to focus on the basics when training and transferring knowledge.

Attending conferences is much more than the technical information that you learn.

The Way One State Evaluates Climate Change

A dog is cutoff from his home during a recent extreme weather event.

South Carolina appears in many evaluations as one of the top ten states that are susceptible to climate change. One climate change source cites, “When it comes to extreme weather, South Carolina is among the states that get hit hardest. It averages about 26 tornadoes per year and is regularly in the path of hurricanes along the Atlantic coast. Heat and coastal flooding are also issues.”

Well, according to most local weather experts, tornados are not that big of an issue. Tropical cyclones, heat, and flooding are part of the natural weather realities. There is a twenty-year upward trend in temperatures and flooding.

Only warming overnight temperatures are statistically significant when we get inside the numbers. As always, we get a better feel for the trends and statistics when we look at the data instead of the narratives.

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

The three summary points for South Carolina from the NOAA State Climate Summaries 2022 are the following:

1. Temperatures in South Carolina have risen more than 1°F since the beginning of the 20th century. The state warmed during the early part of the 20th century and then cooled substantially during the middle of the century. Warming has occurred since then, but only recently have temperatures reached the levels of the 1930s.

2. Total annual precipitation has been below average during most years since 2000 but was above average during the 2015–2020 period. There has been no overall trend in annual precipitation since the beginning of the 20th century; however, a few recent years (notably 2015, 2018, and 2020) have been very wet.

3. Since 1921, sea level at Charleston has risen by 1.3 inches per decade, nearly double the global sea level rise of 0.7 inches per decade. Sea level rise is an important concern in South Carolina due to the state’s extensive coastline, which includes an abundance of salt marshes and estuaries, as well as natural seaports such as Georgetown and Charleston.

South Carolina’s Climate

South Carolina’s position on the east coast makes the state susceptible to cold air masses moving in from the northwest. The state's mild winters are a product of the Appalachian Mountains, which tend to block most cold air outbreaks. However, cold air damming events occur mainly from October to May when cool air masses flow from the northeast and are funneled along the Appalachians' windward side.

The Atlantic Ocean and its Gulf Stream flowing northward off the coast is important since land and water heat and cool at different rates. The position of the Bermuda High dominates South Carolina's weather during the warm season, which provides a persistent flow of warm, moist air into the region.

The statewide surface elevation ranges from sea level to elevation 3560 at Sassafras Mountain in Pickens County. More than 90% of the state is at an elevation of less than 1,000 feet. These changes in elevation impact the temperature and precipitation trends observed across the Lowcountry, Midlands, Pee Dee, and Upstate regions of South Carolina.

SC Climate Office Responsibilities

Tracking specific climate information changed from the federal level to the state level in 1976. South Carolina’s Climate Office was formally created in 1981, around the same time as most other US States. The duties of the SC Climate Office include the following:

1. Coordinate and collect weather observations for the purpose of climate monitoring

2. Summarize and disseminate weather and climate information

3. Perform climate and weather impact assessments

4. Demonstrate the value of climate information in the decision-making process

5. Conduct applied climate research

In other words, the State Climate office is the source of climate change (variability) data.

Temperature

South Carolina’s annual average temperatures range from just below 57 degrees to just above 65 degrees (F). The annual average temperature naturally increases as you move from upper to lower elevations.

In the South Carolina Pee Dee River Basin, which begins in the north-central part of the state and terminates in the east-central, temperatures range from 61 degrees to just above 65 degrees (F). For context, it takes a drop of water a little over a week to travel this distance.

Since the late-1800s, the statewide annual average temperatures have gone through multiple periods of above and below-normal temperatures. A warmer period occurred from approximately 1910 to 1960, followed by a cooler period until 1990. The overall pattern of average temperatures across South Carolina has increased since the mid-1970s.

A substantial rise in minimum (overnight) temperatures have driven this increase.

While there is no statistical trend in temperature change in South Carolina, the increase in the number of overnight events over 75 degrees Fahrenheit is statistically significant.

The warmest year on record for the state is 2017, with an average temperature of 65.1 degrees, and seven of the top ten warmest years have occurred since 2010.

Precipitation

Annual Average Precipitation ranges from below 46 inches to above 56 inches. The statewide annual rainfall average from 1895 to 2021 is 47.80 inches. The precipitation data is skewed by the number of years with rainfall above the average (South Carolina is susceptible to tropical storms).

The geography of the state has an impact on the observed precipitation. Higher precipitation is experienced near the NC mountains and along the coast. Lower amounts of rainfall are experienced in the piedmont and sandhills.

South Carolina’s driest year was 1954, with a statewide average rainfall of 31.72 inches. Many locations in the Midlands and Pee Dee regions recorded less than 30 inches during that year.

A decade later, the state reported the wettest year on record, with an annual average of 69.32 inches in 1964.

Of the last 21 years in South Carolina, 15 have been characterized by warm-season drought conditions.

Extreme Rain

The amount of precipitation that tropical cyclones contribute is often lost when analyzing trends across the entire state. Since 1956, numerous storms have dropped more than a foot of rain over multiple days within the Palmetto State.

The highest 24-hour rainfall total for the state is 14.80 inches measured in Myrtle Beach due to the passage of Hurricane Floyd in September 1999.

Before the historic flooding in the Pee Dee region caused by Hurricane Matthew (2016) and Tropical Storm Florence (2018), the remnants of the Lake Okeechobee Hurricane (1928) and the Homestead Hurricane (1945) produced the highest crests on record at many river gauges across the watershed. During Matthew and again with Florence, many stations across the South Carolina Midlands and Pee Dee set new multi-day precipitation records.

Tropical Cyclones

Tropical storms are part of South Carolina’s climatology and history.

Impacts are not limited to the coast. Inland portions of the state have been affected by:

• Heavy rains

• Flooding

• High winds

• Tornadoes

From 1851 to 2021, forty-four (44) tropical cyclones made direct landfall along the South Carolina coastline. Of these, only four made landfall as major (Category 3 or higher) hurricanes; the October 1893 Hurricane, Hurricane Hazel (1954), Hurricane Gracie (1959), and Hurricane Hugo (1989). There is no record of a Category 5 hurricane making landfall in South Carolina.

Sources:

Climatology of South Carolina, Hope Mizzell & Elliot Wickham, South Carolina State Climatology Office of the SC Department of Natural Resources, Presentation on September 27th, 2022.

Overview of South Carolina’s Climate and Hazards, SCNDR State Climatology Office, Spring 2022.

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State Climate Summaries 2022, South Carolina - State Climate Summaries 2022 (ncics.org), accessed October 2022.

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JD Solomon Inc provides program development, asset management, and facilitation at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment.

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How to Overcome the Fear of Using the Wrong Probability Distribution

Collaboration and virtual training are often all that is needed to help less experienced professionals.

Probability Distributions

The probability density function (PDF) is applied to continuous random variables, whereas the probability distribution function is defined for discrete random variables. For discussion purposes, these are often interchangeably called probability distributions and PDFs.

The probability density function (PDF) is used to specify the random variable's probability equaling a value in the sample space. In contrast, the cumulative distribution function (CDF) is the probability that the variable takes a value less than or equal to a value in the sample space. The PDF and the CDF are non-negative everywhere, and the integral over the entire space equals 1.

The finite differences are important but are also one reason why even savvy professionals shy away from probabilistic analysis. To keep it simple, we will refer to everything as a probability distribution in this discussion.

Sources of Fear

Statistical Illiteracy

My most memorable example is the licensed professional engineer with a master’s degree in chemical engineering. She wanted to hear all of the gory details of Monte Carlo simulations in a team setting. She freaked out when she learned, ‘this is the same statistics that they taught us in college.”

Most technical experts are statistically illiterate. Many of those who are statistically literate want to forget.

Deterministic Education and Training

I did a series of guest lectures at Auburn University and Duke University on probabilistic analysis and decision making. It reminded me that most engineering and scientists are only taught deterministic point estimates throughout their undergraduate and master curriculum. In the work environment, the world continues to love point estimates and single-point outputs.

Inadequate Post-Mortems

Most technical professionals do not want to be wrong, so the premise of not knowing what happens on the back end of their assumptions and predicted range of results is troublesome. Unfortunately, it is easier to just accept a model with single-point inputs and outputs being wrong. “All models are wrong, but some are useful” provides too much cover. And in turn, this leads to not enough inquiry.

Do Not Use the Tool Enough

Not using the tool enough is as much a reality as it is a trap. The way to turn this around is to perform Monte Carlo simulations on every excel model you produce. It takes more personal time (free time), but the reality and discomfort will persist until you take personal actions to overcome it.

Some Comforts (or maybe discomforts)

Few people, including senior management and your peers, are ever going to follow up because:

• They don’t understand statistics and probability distributions

• If inaccurate, people will not usually beat a dead horse (all models are wrong…damn!)

• There is not enough money or work time to dive deep into your analysis

• Most organizations are not going to spend the money to create a different model

• You will probably be too conservative with your probability distribution anyway

• The Central Limit Theorem governs most people

• Anchoring around single-point estimates is more common than uncommon

Get In the Game

The world is richly skewed and highly uncertain. This includes biology, social sciences, human behavior to many physical phenomena (like floods, sand piles, and earthquakes). Physics in the laboratory is about the only thing in our lives that is normally distributed.

Three important things to remember will help overcome the fear of choosing the wrong probability distribution.

1. Most users do not have all the data they would prefer. Embrace it! Uncertainty is part of the power of probabilistic analysis.

2. A major outcome of first-generation models is to direct where more data is needed. Play with different probabilistic distributions to learn the sensitivities of the model. Use some common sense, but the end game of a first-generation model is not absolute correctness.

3. Avoid anchoring and central tendency. Remember that the past is more certain than the yet-seen future. Expand your ranges to emulate the uncertain future.

Get in the game! The fear of choosing the wrong probability distribution is an illusion in your head!

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JD Solomon Inc provides program development, asset management, and facilitation services at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the natural environment. Monte Carlo simulations are a standard tool in our approach to addressing risk and uncertainty. Contact us for more information on developing lifecycle forecasts, assessing the total cost of ownership, or providing third-party reviews of capital improvement programs or operating budgets.

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