Bob Dylan, in his song Subterranean Homesick Blues, declared “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” And it’s a good thing, too, because the weatherman might get it wrong half the time.We’re lucky enough to live in an area where meteorologists have a variety of ways they can screw up. Snow, rain, heat, fog, wind, frostbite, vortexes and derechos. Plus we have days when the weather changes rapidly. There’s a tired old saying, and I always want to punch someone in the gizzard every time I hear it: “Hey, if you don’t like the weather now, just wait a minute and it’ll change.”No kidding. Thanks for that stunning insight.
I realize that meteorologists have a difficult job, and we live in an area that makes it especially challenging. But what really irks me is the confident self-assurance that every meteorologist seems to have.They wear their fancy suits and dresses and stand in front of maps and talk about pressures, and fronts, and systems, and they sound so official and wise. I don’t buy it!I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years of meteorologists showing us computer-generated versions of their forecasts: “Here’s the rain situation from the latest models that came in just within the last half hour…”Hey there, hotshot, if you’re just going to show me the model that some computer spat out for you, then why do we even need you? Why not put all these fancy models up on your website and let us all look at them? Don’t you do any interpretation of the data? Instead they put up standard graphics of suns, clouds or rain drops on the website. My favorite is the one of a cloud with a lightning bolt coming out of the bottom, and the top part of a sun behind the cloud.That forecast should just be called, “Who the hell knows?”A certain meteorologist on a certain station in Chicago is fond of inserting “Chance Showers” into his seven day forecast. Not just once or twice, but every single day. Which I guess is correct, since there’s a chance of showers everyday, right? Just telling me there’s a chance of something happening doesn’t help me though. There’s a chance that a wild pig will tackle me and eat my nose while I’m running in the morning, but it’s not likely so I don’t worry about it.Another meteorologist goes even farther and uses the question mark so often in his forecast I wonder if he has any idea what’s up. “Sunny, breezy, chance of an afternoon shower?”Question mark? Well is there or isn’t there? And if you don’t know, then say you don’t know. Wouldn’t we all respect meteorologists a little bit more if they just told us up front, “Look, this forecast is a little iffy.”That’s what we really need. We need a meteorologist who gives us the forecast and then tells us how confident he or she is in that forecast. If you think tomorrow’s high is going to be 92 degrees, with a southwest wind and plenty of sunshine, then you should let us know that you’re 90% certain of the temperature, 95% certain of the wind direction, and 75% certain that it’s going to be sunny. Telling me “Chance of a Thunderstorm?” doesn’t help. It only makes me yell things at the TV. Then I feel like an idiot because the damn meteorologist can’t hear me!The other thing we need is a meteorologist who reviews his forecast from the previous day.“Yesterday, I predicted 42 degrees and clear for today, but we only got up to 26 and sixteen inches of snow fell. Looks like I really blew that one!”They always show the weather almanac with today’s high and low temperatures, last year’s temperatures, barometer, sunrise, etc. Why not add a thumbs up or thumbs down evaluation of how well they predicted today’s weather yesterday, and then keep a running total of thumbs up versus thumbs down?There’s a 0% chance of that happening though. And that’s fine. We don’t want them to be too good anyway. There’s nothing worse than a smug meteorologist.You should subscribe to this blog, don't you think? That way you'll never forget to come back. Forgetting is bad. So why don't you just type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
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