Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Boy Did They Blow That One

I have the indisputable answer as to why weather forecasters were so incorrect in predicting the severity of the recent snowstorm:
predicting the future is impossible.
Weather forecasts are just best guesses. You can have computer models anticipating everything but then one butterfly flaps his or her wings in TON's backyard in New Jersey and it changes the snowfall amounts at the palatial Damino estate in Westchester County.
But that doesn't mean they didn't fuck up royally. The meteorological community has a vested interest in going with the most dire forecasts they can reasonably get behind:
1) It makes people pay attention to them
2) It earns them money
3) They really feel like they are doing the right then to keep people safe
4) It's better to err on the high side, than on the low side

Unfortunately idiot politicians to whom we entrust way too much power and control of our lives, took these Chicken Little predictions and shut down entire cities for no good reason.

Note: it's a shame that we don't trust one another enough (we may be justified) to let people use their own judgement of whether or not it's safe to drive and go to work.

5 comments:

Damino said...

LOL re: palatial estate. It's wildly inaccurate but flattering. And I completely agree about meteorologists, and like that they err on the side of overestimating these storms. Big Kev's wife works for the NYC office of emergency management and usually has inside info about whether storms are likely to be legit.

RZR said...

I blame the media and not necessarily the weather forecasters. I think forecasters would rather be correct vs anything else - while the media creates panic for ratings. Plus the media probably has some shady agreements with "Big Bread" and "Big Milk"

Paul said...

Damino once again being a typical liberal: authorities should lie to us to protect us from ourselves.

Also, in my job I often get more accurate and less-hyped weather information, but this time even that was wrong.

Damino said...

It's not just about me being liberal. I don't trust people to make appropriate decisions, and bad decision making can harm us all, financially and otherwise. Look at what happened with hurricanes Sandy and Katrina - people didn't heed warnings and the results were disastrous in many cases.

I liked that Chris Christie used tough guy language to get people to stay out of harm's way, and I like that Andrew Cuomo preemptively shut down transit based on a likelihood of a massive storm.

I'd much rather have this result than the opposite, where a storm or other danger is downplayed, and then people really get hurt.

Bill said...

I hate meteorologist - except the hot ones - mostly because they don't have onions to make a forecast and sit on the fence half the time then tell you they got it right. I'm fine when they blow a forecast. Closing schools and being overly cautious is the world we live in. Sucks for parents who have to take off work.