Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A comment on weather predictions...
There is a whole chapter of The Fortune Sellers (Chapter 2) dedicated to weather forecasting. Tropical Depression, I mean Hurricane, I mean Tropical Storm Fay is a classic example of weather forecasting weakness. There are many factors that impact storm intensification, however, the forecasters were at a loss because there were no historical models that matched the behavior of this storm. The frustration with all of this is that they make the prediction with the associated doomsday warnings. As a result, everyone scurries around to prepare based on the prediction for their area but the end result is completely different than the prediction. Following the storm, they ask why people were so apathetic and unprepared. Could it be because they listened to the prediction and prepared accordingly?
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9 comments:
Kristal: Hope you are high and dry still. Latest weather indicates FL will get a third chance to decide if Fay is a hurricane. The bright side of Fay is that the draught is over and I assume the Everglades is starting to fill back up.
Just think, you could be in Colorado getting nosebleeds from the lack of humidity instead :)
Well, you can always turn the TV off and wing it I suppose :)
Hanging bits of sea weed outside your front door and observing them used to be the British way. But then, we do have Mad Cow Disease too.
Hope it's not too damp down there.
zeqrzdlp
This is a fun game. Can you tell what it is?
tpsgngf
I'm wondering if we'll have the ability to control the weather before we have the technology to accurately predict the weather. Also, I thought I remember reading something about several weather satellites nearing or exceeding their end of lifecycles with no funding available to replace them.
Predicting the weather is a funny thing... it seems the weatherman is rarely completely accurate.
Growing up in the midwest, there have been many occasions where a 'minor shower' turns out to be a night of nasty thunderstorms or tornadoes, and vice versa.
Because of this, it is difficult for people to rely on the weatherman. After the weathermen cry wolf too many times, stock up on food or move to a safe location and nothing happens, they lose faith that they can really trust their reports. Then, when bad weather is certain to come in, people doubt it and are unprepared.
You may all remember the discussion at residency about the ability to control the weather, specifically hurricanes. We are just starting to dry out and learned that they upgraded Invest 94 to a tropical depression. This is always a fun time of year here. I had never heard the bit about hanging sea weed outside the door, but I'm sure the fun would end when the first 80+ gust sent it sailing.
That's the beauty of the seaweed system - when it blows away there's a storm outside!
Despite our general lack of confidence in weather predictions, the book's observations about the Farmer's Almanac and weather prediction accuracy surprised me. It is a lot better than other types of predictions.
Now, what is wincoder doing with his zeqrzdlp and tpsgngf? I at first thought that you were drawing something using vectors for the letters and connecting the dots.
I will sleep on it. *grins and checks the discussions in her log*
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