How Can We Tell?

Weather forecasting has supposedly gotten more accurate since I was a teenager.  But that isn't what I'm seeing, and honestly, I've had enough of being told that "it will" then seeing it not even come close.  And the worst part is that a lot of businesses are reacting based on these weather forecasters being so assertive about it will happen.


In Central New York, 8-12 inches of snow in 12 hours is nothing. Utica, a city about 45 minutes to the east of Syracuse, has decided to declare a snow emergency in anticipation of a storm that is might to leave dead center of that range. Since some of you aren't from CNY, the might is huge as this is a lake effect event. That means 5 miles from where you are standing in the sunshine, it could be whiteout conditions.

Seriously people, wait to see what the storm looks like!

The last 5 years we've seen more and more winter storm warnings and watches that turn out to be nothing. It's getting to be ridiculous. 15 years ago, a warning or watch actually meant something. Now they are just worthless words used by the media to drum up views as they tease you for 20 minutes about the weather. Then they tell you it will happen because all the computer models say it will. Back in the 1980s, computers models were new and only used to show some additional possibilities. The forecaster still made the decision on what to forecast. Now, they just pick the one that proven to be the most accurate over the previous time period that they feel is appropriate. So why do we need them? I say we don't really need them any more! The sensationalism of the weather is getting ridiculous.

I may go back to what I was doing in high school, making my own predictions. I used to have the weather channel on without sound. Can't say I was completely accurate, but I also can't say I was a whole lot less accurate than they were. I can say that I never predicted a snow storm that just plain didn't happen. They need to stop stating it will happen and believing completely in the computer models. They need to put that college education to use. Or are they trying to say that college for a meteorologist is all about learning how to be in front of a camera and reading what the computer tells you will happen? That's not what it was about when I was in college.

If ever storm is going to be exaggerated as to how strong it's going to be, we're going to have to send them back to grade school to read about the boy who cried wolf. They aren't supposed act as if every storm coming through is going to be so bad that the world will come to a stand-still. Only make that call when all the signs point to that happening....