I don't watch TV news, and I heard only a little bit of Levin talking about this. I saw the Weather Underground post over the weekend, linked by a commenter at Brendan Loy's blog. Loy was not impressed.
The WU data apparently came from amateur surface stations. I have no reason to believe their data were wrong. However, hurricane hunter aircraft were flying through the storm the whole time. They measured higher wind speeds in the eastern part of the storm (which was over the ocean), and at higher altitudes.
Sure, it's possible that NOAA's leadership has been politicized, just like everything else this administration touches. But did the professional meteorologists on board the aircraft lie about their data? That's a serious charge, and I'll need to see more evidence before I take it seriously. Until I see that evidence, this sounds like "weather trutherism" to me.
The whole thing is kind of moot, anyway. Some of the most catastrophic damage occurred in upstate New York and Vermont, when everybody agrees that Irene was "only" a tropical storm. Apparently there's little correlation between wind speed and rainfall amount.
