Meteorologists

Good evening once again.  I didn't actually get to see a lot of television today so I've got to pull one out of the "vault" from just the other day.  I'm sure that it is relevant somewhere today so I don't think it really matters that I picked it up earlier in the week.  As you can guess, it has to do with the weather forecasting.  Something that you need to keep in mind is that I completely understand that what they do is difficult because they are predicting future events, and they don't have a magic crystal ball.  So I understand the fact that they are wrong quite often and that is acceptable in the field.  What I don't get is why they get paid so much anymore.

I mean seriously, how hard is it to start up a computer to run a program that retrieves data from the national weather service and does some calculations based on previously occurring similar situations?  I could easily teach my 7 year old son or 70 year old mother in law to do that and I'm sure they would take a lot less pay for it.  Heck, I could even use some software to actually run the program and speak the forecast for about $800 per year.  Some of the meteorologists are a little smarter than what we have here.  Ours have actually stated several times that their forecast is from one of their computer models.  The first time I heard him say it I was completely baffled as to why they would admit it.  He has stated that they use several models in their "forecast center" to get the forecast.  This tells me that his degree in meteorology wasn't money well spent.  He could have saved some money, purchased a couple of servers, the software, and invested time setting up the models because his entire job is to look at the computer model and pick which one he thinks is going to be the most accurate.  Give me about an hour and I could figure that out!

But there is more to what gets under my skin.  I live about 20-25 miles north of Syracuse and the radar for this local station is about 5 miles south of Syracuse.  So quite often they will show their "live" radar view while they are doing their segment and it will show rain or snow in the area where I live yet there is none.  Or it may show that it is clear but snowing bad enough that I can barely see the house 100 feet away across the street.  And what really irks me is when the radar will show rain or snow 20 miles north of my location and he states that it isn't reaching the ground!  How does he know that without being there?  He actually stated last summer that rain over the north shore of Oneida Lake wasn't making it to the ground.  It was raining so hard that we had to turn the television up very loud just to hear it over the noise on the roof!  I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if he stated that he was guessing it wasn't making it to the ground but he states it as fact.

And just when you thought I couldn't top this off, apparently there is an independent company that rates weather forecasting.  And this particular station is now supposedly the most accurate forecasting in the Syracuse market!  Does that tell you how bad we have it here?  I mean Syracuse averages something like 120 inches of snow per year and this station's forecast during the winter usually states "now I can't rule out the possibility of snow tomorrow but..."  Really?  It is rare that we go more than a few days in a row without it so I guess putting in things like that is one way to bump up your accuracy rating.

I do have to admit that not everyone has to suffer like we do.  There are certainly some very talented meteorologists out there, we just don't happen to have them here.