| Weather
the Wrong Way |
| It's not snowing. |
| The weathermen said it would, but it's not. |
| I'm shocked. How could the weathermen be wrong? |
| How could they be wrong again? |
| And again? |
| And again? |
| I've got a theory on why the weather forecasting has been
so abysmal these last few months: It's an overabundance of
technology. |
| A week ago I decided to schedule a very early round of golf
on Friday morning before work. I called the course and got
the details on the earliest I could arrive. Then, at 10 p.m.,
I checked out the forecast for the next morning. |
| The Weather Channel online reported a temperature of 57
degrees at 6:30 the next morning, with skies that were partly
sunny. Perfect for golf, I thought. |
| But, hey, not so fast. Weather can never be that simple
in Washington, D.C. The next morning I awoke at 6:30 a.m.
to find temperatures unusually warm at about 71 degrees‚14
degrees higher than the forecast of only eight hours before. |
| About 15 minutes later, it started to rain. |
| Rain? |
| I turned on the television to check The Weather Channel's
new forecast. Maybe it was only a passing shower and would
be over quickly. But when the local radar image came up, it
was all green‚light to moderate showers as far as the eye
could see. |
| Now, I don't pretend to know much about weather. But forecasters
simply have to do better than completely misdiagnosing the
weather that's only eight hours out. |
| I can't believe that with all the technology available to
us today nobody could provide even the slightest odds that
a huge rain system could move into our area, increase temperatures
dramatically, and change an otherwise partly sunny day into
a solidly rainy one. |
| It's not as though a rain system that large just materialized
out of nowhere. And even if the predominant wind currents
coming up the coast or over the mountains are unpredictable,
there has to be a better way of predicting which way the weather
is going to go. |
| Last winter, it seemed like the forecasters couldn't say
anything right at all. They predicted eight feet of snow,
and it was dry. They said the day would be clear, and schools
closed at noon because of snow and ice. |
| So here's my theory: It seems like not too long ago that
the local television stations began hyping the new Digital
Doppler XT, which presumably was better than the old weather
radar system. |
| Most of the weather forecasting stations and agencies are
using the best and latest technology available, and, curiously
enough, everybody's accuracy rating has plummeted. |
| Now, I don't know how the new radar systems differ from
the old ones, but I know the TV stations have really been
hyping up their technology, as if it would make the weather
reporting better than before. |
| Here's my advice: Get rid of it. |
| Go down to the hardware store and buy a metal thermometer
with a red indicator and hang it out on the back deck. Buy
a barometer and a tool to measure the speed and direction
of the wind. |
| It may not be fancy. In fact, it's science. |
| But these three basic tools, in the hands of an experienced
weather forecaster, can be more accurate than any modern machines
in predicting the weather only eight hours from now. |
| By the way, it's going to rain this weekend. I'm just guessing
at that, but I have as much chance at being right as the forecasters. |
