Confessions of a Litigious Mind

The random, irrelevant musings of a law school graduate.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

forecast for tomorrow: retarded

ok, i hate meteorology/meteorologists. if you dont know that, where have you been? to prove a point, i've been checking weather.com this week. by this week i mean yesterday and today. this little experiment only confirmed my hate for weather forecasts and general disrespect towards the profession of meteorology.

yesterday, the thursday forecast was 53 degrees with a 70% chance of precipitation. today, the forecast for thursday is 38 degrees and 100% chance of precipitation. i know they study the "weather patterns" and such to predict precipitation, but a 30% difference seems kinda crazy. and let me ask you, how can the forecast change 15 degrees in a day? what was so different today than yesterday?

well, i'll give you an answer. meteorology is bullshit. they put all their nice looking maps up on the screen, and act like they know what's going to happen. but they dont. meteorology is not a science. a meteorologist is nothing more than a person who can coordinate movement well in front of a green screen. it's like a game, because most meteorologists probably dont have minds that are much more advanced than your average 6 year old.

let's examine some similarities. kids like coloring, but cant stay inside the lines. weathermen also enjoy using color in random, nonsensical schemes. also like children, meteorologists are able to use their imagination at their "job." they can pretty much say whatever comes to mind, and adoring onlookers will think its so cute. finally, neither can make up their mind. kids really want that matchbox racing set, that is, until they see the remote control car. likewise, meteorologist think it will be sunny and in the 90s, but the next day predict snow.

so let's face it, meteorologists are nothing more than children. it reminds me of an old saying...give a meteorologist a fish, and you feed him for a day. teach a meteorologist how to use a clicker and green screen, and he will fraudulently bullshit his way into a salary.

posted by josh @ 3/01/2006 11:08:00 PM

6 Comments:

At 3/02/2006 7:14 AM, Blogger sadielady said...

I'm totally with you. I don't think tv meteorologists know shit, except how to stand in front of a blue screen and point to the right area while they talk. And here's why I think that: in high school I had to do a calculus project, something interesting that involved a cool formula basically, and present it to the class. I had heard that there is a calculus formula that can be used in predicting the paths of hurricanes within a short time frame. So I figured, what better way to find out more about this than to interview the city's most popular tv meteorologist. He gave me a tour of the studio, showed me all the equipment he has, and talked a good talk, but whenever I asked him "how do you predict the path of a hurricane?" all he could say was "I print it out from this computer." "What?" I would say; "This computer here has the information on it about where it's going to go, and I print it, and that's what I use to give my forecast." "But how does the computer determine the path of the hurricane?" "Well...the information comes to me from the National Hurricane Center." "How do they predict it?" I ask. (Getting frustrated now) "it just comes up on this computer, and I print it. And that's how I predict where the hurricane is going to go." "Oh."

I never watched that guy's forecast on that channel again. Moron. And of course I saw some years later when I was home visiting my parents that he had won some big meteorologist award. I bet he got a big raise for that. That guy's got a sweet scam going on.

But there are some people out there who know what they're doing and use actual math and science to do it, I think. Example: after the interview with the doofus tv guy, I called the National Hurricane Center and talked to someone down there, who then mailed me a package with all kinds of information, including the very calculus formula I had heard existed, and examples of how it can be used. I got an A on my project. (And told my class what a joke that tv weather guy is. Which made them laugh.)

 
At 3/02/2006 11:56 AM, Blogger JLee said...

I agree...there's only ONE weatherman at our station I listen to and he is a total weather geek (Steve)with a PhD in Meteorology. The other we have sayings for and I won't use their full names for those weirdos googling their names:
when it comes to weather with:
X Snell, you never can tell..
X Fields, it's in the ballpark...
but you can believe Steve!!

 
At 3/02/2006 12:46 PM, Blogger Brancibeer said...

Are you complaining about Meteorology.... AGAIN??

 
At 3/02/2006 6:03 PM, Blogger law monkey said...

actually, dicta, i hate to burst your cynical/critical bubble, but the meteorologists were right. you may not like what the weather prediction was, or the differential in temps from one day to the next, but i have two very accurate outdoor thermometers which both confirmed the weather.com forecast within +/- 3 degrees.

sorry bud.

 
At 3/02/2006 6:42 PM, Blogger josh said...

they werent right. they said 2 different things. if you say enough different things of course you're bound to be right.

hey i got a forecast for ya: tomorrow there's a 50% chance of rain. either it will rain, or it wont. i win.

i'm sorry to hear you've fallen into the "meteorological stooge" category, law monkey.

 
At 3/03/2006 6:50 PM, Blogger Yoda said...

In what profession can you be wrong ALL the time and still retain your job?


Weather forecasting.

 

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