{"id":1117,"date":"2018-04-06T00:05:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T04:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2018-04-21T21:41:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T01:41:29","slug":"what-was-that-forecast-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1117","title":{"rendered":"F – What was that forecast again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s going to snow…or rain…or probably be sunny? <\/b><\/p>\n

The Forecaster said what?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was at a meteorological convention the other day when I ran into my two favorite forecasters Otto and Herman. Otto is the local newscaster for WOMG-TV and Herman is the local weatherman for TV station WIDK. They were having a heated conversation which I didn\u2019t want to interrupt, but couldn\u2019t help but overhear. <\/span><\/p>\n

————————-<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know why they pay you any money for the guesswork you do predicting the<\/span><\/p>\n

weather,\u201d shouted Otto, \u201cWhat do you use, a crystal ball? I\u2019d get new batteries if I were you, it\u2019s rarely correct.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Herman wasn\u2019t too insulted as he was used to Otto\u2019s complaints. \u201cI analyze the weather patterns as I was taught to in school. There is always a degree of error involved in predicting the weather. \"\"<\/a>Mother Nature is not always consistent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otto retorted, \u201cAnd what school was that? Elementary school? Come on I can stick my head out of the window, look at the sky and be just as accurate as you. You love showing<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

those big maps and radar and scientific stuff to justify your claims. It\u2019s a shame that Mother Nature hasn\u2019t read the same manuals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have you know that it takes a minimum of 4 years for a Bachelor of Science degree to be a meteorologist.\u201d Herman reacted, \u201cMany meteorologists pursue Masters of Science, even doctoral degrees. We don\u2019t just sit back and play with our Magic 8-Balls. We study patterns over time. There are lots of different projections that coalesce as we get closer to an event so our predictions become more reliable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Otto scowled, \u201cThen why don\u2019t you wait until they are reliable before you give out your predictions? Other than to panic people about a rainy day, what purpose is there in giving a 10-day forecast, if you don\u2019t really know what is going to happen until the day before?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMeteorology is a science and should be treated as one. People need to know that we don\u2019t just pick predictions out of the air. They need to understand the process to better understand the prediction. When you learned math in school were you just given the answers or were you taught what the process was to discover the correct answer yourself? Knowing the process builds a better understanding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otto waved that one off. \u201cDon\u2019t get me started on math, that\u2019s for another discussion. If your process is so good, then why are there so many different models and predictions? Shouldn\u2019t everyone seeing the same data come up with the same results.?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Herman hesitated for a moment on that one. \u201cThat would seem to be correct, but \u00a0depending on what you use as relevant data and what tools and historical events you use to make your prediction, you might get different answers.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen why don\u2019t you all get together and agree on standards of data and history to use or work on developing new technology that is more accurate?\u201d Otto continued to push.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Herman was quick with that answer. \u201cWhat makes you think we are not advancing our field of expertise. Our weather predictions have become much more reliable as we develop new techniques for both gathering information and analyzing our past.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otto snarked, \u201cProbably doesn\u2019t hurt your ratings either?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, they both became too frustrated with the whole conversation and the topic was dropped, as most of their discourses usually are. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

——————————–<\/span><\/p>\n

As for me I basically wait to see what the day is like. When I wake up, I deal with whatever Mother Nature has planned for me. Let all those others watch their daily weather updates and forever change their plans for each right or wrong prediction. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

C\u2019est la vie!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s going to snow…or rain…or probably be sunny? The Forecaster said what? I was at a meteorological convention the other day when I ran into my two favorite forecasters Otto and Herman. Otto is the local newscaster for WOMG-TV and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,7],"tags":[70,67,118],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2018","category-story-writing","tag-a-to-z-blog-challenge","tag-harvey-heilbrun","tag-weather-forecasting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}