Whether or not to believe the forecasted weather
I cringe when I see a �10 day forecast� on any sort of weather channel or website. Why? Well, the fact is that no one can accurately predict the weather 10 days from now. The key word is “accurately.�
Oh, weather forecasters can get close, sometimes, but often it is a guessing game on trends from the past and what might happen based on current conditions.
I worked for many years in the TV news business. I had the chance to get to know several meteorologists. By and large, they were really good folks who honestly wanted to help people.
One day, I asked one of them the following question, “Just how sure are you that it is going to rain two days from now?�
His response? He said, “Honestly, we have about a 50% chance of getting tomorrow’s weather right. Each day after that, our chance of being right is cut in half. There are just too many variables that can impact the weather.�
When he first told me this, I was a bit shocked. Before then, I really believed it when I was told it was going to rain seven days from now.
I was thinking about this subject recently and decided to do a little experiment. I went to the National Weather Service website and tracked their predictions for a certain day over the course of a week.
I was surprised how close they got, but even then, there were a number of changes.
The day in question was Wednesday, November 27, 2013. I started tracking the forecast when it first showed up on the National Weather Service’s 7 day forecast.
During those seven days, here are the differences between the forecasts:
The high temperature varied from a high of 38 to a high of 49.
The chance of rain varied from 50% to 90%.
The amount of rain varied from a “trace� to half-an-inch.
The winds varied from 7 mph to 32 mph.
The time the showers were “mainly� supposed to happen varied from 10 AM to 4 PM.
To be fair, they did get one thing right: There was 100% chance of weather.
Oh, weather forecasters can get close, sometimes, but often it is a guessing game on trends from the past and what might happen based on current conditions.
I worked for many years in the TV news business. I had the chance to get to know several meteorologists. By and large, they were really good folks who honestly wanted to help people.
One day, I asked one of them the following question, “Just how sure are you that it is going to rain two days from now?�
His response? He said, “Honestly, we have about a 50% chance of getting tomorrow’s weather right. Each day after that, our chance of being right is cut in half. There are just too many variables that can impact the weather.�
When he first told me this, I was a bit shocked. Before then, I really believed it when I was told it was going to rain seven days from now.
I was thinking about this subject recently and decided to do a little experiment. I went to the National Weather Service website and tracked their predictions for a certain day over the course of a week.
I was surprised how close they got, but even then, there were a number of changes.
The day in question was Wednesday, November 27, 2013. I started tracking the forecast when it first showed up on the National Weather Service’s 7 day forecast.
During those seven days, here are the differences between the forecasts:
The high temperature varied from a high of 38 to a high of 49.
The chance of rain varied from 50% to 90%.
The amount of rain varied from a “trace� to half-an-inch.
The winds varied from 7 mph to 32 mph.
The time the showers were “mainly� supposed to happen varied from 10 AM to 4 PM.
To be fair, they did get one thing right: There was 100% chance of weather.
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