Yes.
He (or she) gets it right. More often than you think. Way more often. 
Nothing seems to bring the amateur weathermen out of the tree bark faster than the first spate of winter weather. More half-baked theories, repetition of hearsay and tea leaf readings emerge this time of year than at any other. And it always amazes me how quickly these homespun ideas gain credence among the masses.
If it sounds as if I’m taking up for my meteorologist friends at the TV station, I am. But I come armed with the truth. And here it is: the 24-hour forecast you watch on the TV news or hear on the radio is 90 percent accurate*. It’s still pretty good for 48- and 72-hour forecasts, but the numbers are off a bit from that lofty 90 percent mark.
I don’t know about you, but I’m more interested in knowing today’s weather today, and I’m content with the .900 batting average for my friends down the hall. I will worry about tomorrow’s weather tomorrow.
Things are a little different, however, when you’re talking about winter weather. An approaching snowstorm that is three days out is still a sobering thought, one that necessitates some advance preparation and may make you think twice about that trip to Aunt Clara’s in Louisville.
The weather bureau has the resources.
We depend on our local weather people, whether they’re employed by the TV or radio station or by NOAA itself, to help us know what’s coming. (Better to prepare for a storm that may come but doesn’t than to fail to prepare for a storm that does.)
The weather bureau has the technology, training and the historical data to make strikingly accurate predictions, even as far out as a week. So my question is, when you want to know about the weather, really know, who ya gonna call?
I’m amazed, no astounded, by the people who will act upon information delivered to them via the checkout line at the grocery store and favor it over the informed, well-researched information given to us by people whose job it is to be as accurate as possible.
“Well I heard we were supposed to get six inches.” Yeah? Heard from who? The cashier? The lady with the tacky purse ahead of you in the checkout line? The man with the dog food in his cart behind you? And they’re smarter than the meteorologist because . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When the weather gets bad, our telephone line at the TV station lights up. I hear the pages on the intercom all day long. ”Weather, line two. Weather, line one.” I don’t know, but I’m guessing that most of those calls are to either confirm hearsay or to, ahem, correct the weather people on something they obviously overlooked.
Baloney.
Now, you don’t have to go far or listen long to hear someone recount a time when the weather forecasters blew it. ”Yeah, buddy. I remember the time they said ‘no accumulation and we got 13 inches.” Now that mistake may have occurred 36 years ago – or not at all – and that one occurrence has become the icon for disbelievers. It’s repeated so often it’s become a cliche.
There was a woman interviewed on CNN yesterday who was caught off guard by the blizzard that hit the Atlantic Seaboard. She said she had heard the snow would be no more than three inches and that when she woke up the next morning, there was nearly 18 inches on the ground. Now, I’m thinking back to all the forecasts I’ve seen on TV this week and I’m seeing all these winter storm warnings and blizzard warnings and TV forecasters urging, pleading with people to be prepared for the deadly storm that was approaching.
Now, where this poor woman got her “only three inches” forecast, I don’t know. The checkout line, maybe?
I have no quarrel with folklore weather forecasting and the information you get in Farmer’s Almanac. There are things in nature that are valid indicators of what is to come, and the professionals don’t dismiss them out of hand. It’s all part of the mix, and I think that what we see on TV is as good as it gets in the realm of weather forecasting.
The next time I’m in the checkout line and people are talking about the weather, I’ll turn a deaf ear to the lies and concentrate on sterner stuff – like the headlines on the magazine tabloids.
*http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/how-valid-are-tv-weather-forecasts/
http://www.artsci.washington.edu/news/WinterSpring03/Forecast.htm
Also see the Wikipedia page for weather forecasting.
