Monday, January 24, 2005
Snow-Brainer
Being a weather forecaster must be the easiest job in the world. There's seemingly no accountability. If you're off by a day or two, who cares? If you say it'll snow and it doesn't, no biggie. If you call for rain and it's sunny out, you're fine. I don't doubt that it's not a trivial task to forecast the weather, but it also seems that they're more often right than wrong.
You can go to weather.com and get an hourly forecast for two days from now, which really seems like false advertising to me, given that they can't even seem to get the next twelve-hour window correct. Maybe I'd be more sympathetic if there was some big disclaimer saying that most of what they're predicting is just guesswork. Often I find disclaimers annoying because they're stating the blindingly obvious. ("Coffee is hot. Do not spill on crotch.") But weather forecasters seem to speak with such authority. They say it WILL get cloudy later on, and WILL warm up to 57 degrees and WILL snow 6-10 inches. You'd think they'd be more vague if they weren't so sure. You know, claim it MIGHT get cloudy, and will warm up to the 50's, and snow somewhere between nothing and a foot.
Because they're so authoritative, I get sucked in every time. But a nice disclaimer, like, "Weather forecasting is done for the amusement of the forecaster alone, and his predictions should not be taken seriously under any circumstances" would go a long way towards easing my angst.
I'm not conjuring this anger out of thin air. This weekend, DC forecasters predicted that we'd get hit with 5-9 inches of snow (well, the forecasts kept changing, but that was the average) over the weekend, starting on Saturday morning and ending on Sunday morning. Sounded pretty serious. All sorts of events were cancelled. But here's what happened: It snowed, starting around 9 or 10 AM, and getting heavy around 1 or 2. It stopped at about 5 PM and didn't start again at all. I drove about half an hour in the snow, and it was quite nice because most of the people had been scared away from the road. It wasn't that easy to see, but it was certainly passable. Then, I headed home around 10 PM, and it was fantastic! There was no one on the roads, and most of the snow had been driven off already, and the skies were clear. Fantastic! On Sunday, there was some snow on the ground, but it was basically a normal day. I have to wonder how much revenue those forecasters cost people who preemptively cancelled their events.
The next day, was there any apology? Not that I heard. No, they were just forecasting away, as if nothing had happened. The only job I know of with less accountability is President of the United States. At any rate, I gotta run and make sure all my windows are shut: It's gonna rain tomorrow.
You can go to weather.com and get an hourly forecast for two days from now, which really seems like false advertising to me, given that they can't even seem to get the next twelve-hour window correct. Maybe I'd be more sympathetic if there was some big disclaimer saying that most of what they're predicting is just guesswork. Often I find disclaimers annoying because they're stating the blindingly obvious. ("Coffee is hot. Do not spill on crotch.") But weather forecasters seem to speak with such authority. They say it WILL get cloudy later on, and WILL warm up to 57 degrees and WILL snow 6-10 inches. You'd think they'd be more vague if they weren't so sure. You know, claim it MIGHT get cloudy, and will warm up to the 50's, and snow somewhere between nothing and a foot.
Because they're so authoritative, I get sucked in every time. But a nice disclaimer, like, "Weather forecasting is done for the amusement of the forecaster alone, and his predictions should not be taken seriously under any circumstances" would go a long way towards easing my angst.
I'm not conjuring this anger out of thin air. This weekend, DC forecasters predicted that we'd get hit with 5-9 inches of snow (well, the forecasts kept changing, but that was the average) over the weekend, starting on Saturday morning and ending on Sunday morning. Sounded pretty serious. All sorts of events were cancelled. But here's what happened: It snowed, starting around 9 or 10 AM, and getting heavy around 1 or 2. It stopped at about 5 PM and didn't start again at all. I drove about half an hour in the snow, and it was quite nice because most of the people had been scared away from the road. It wasn't that easy to see, but it was certainly passable. Then, I headed home around 10 PM, and it was fantastic! There was no one on the roads, and most of the snow had been driven off already, and the skies were clear. Fantastic! On Sunday, there was some snow on the ground, but it was basically a normal day. I have to wonder how much revenue those forecasters cost people who preemptively cancelled their events.
The next day, was there any apology? Not that I heard. No, they were just forecasting away, as if nothing had happened. The only job I know of with less accountability is President of the United States. At any rate, I gotta run and make sure all my windows are shut: It's gonna rain tomorrow.
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