meteorology
During times like this week, when the forecasters get it [mostly] wrong, people call them out as incompetent. It's mostly in good humor, but I still have to roll my eyes, since I have a meteorology degree and all.
Consider the hurricane - a massive storm that dominates a 1000-mile area. Forecasting its landfall is like predicting where a Plinko chip will fall, only with thousands of pegs and dozens of possible slots. Give it a shot - next time you're watching The Price is Right, see how often you can predict where a chip will fall - though a human aims and a storm doesn't. Heck, most people don't know how a bowling throw will go until the result reveals itself.
A hurricane, which mostly runs along water, is easier to nail down than something like this week's snows. A slow-moving system in this area is susceptible to the terrain and the mash of the colliding fronts. A thousand vertical feet - a sliver in meteorological terms - can be the difference between snow or freezing rain or just rain. It's a tough job.
I'm not really complaining. I just figured the local weather guys deserved a voice, and by proxy the school districts.
Consider the hurricane - a massive storm that dominates a 1000-mile area. Forecasting its landfall is like predicting where a Plinko chip will fall, only with thousands of pegs and dozens of possible slots. Give it a shot - next time you're watching The Price is Right, see how often you can predict where a chip will fall - though a human aims and a storm doesn't. Heck, most people don't know how a bowling throw will go until the result reveals itself.
A hurricane, which mostly runs along water, is easier to nail down than something like this week's snows. A slow-moving system in this area is susceptible to the terrain and the mash of the colliding fronts. A thousand vertical feet - a sliver in meteorological terms - can be the difference between snow or freezing rain or just rain. It's a tough job.
I'm not really complaining. I just figured the local weather guys deserved a voice, and by proxy the school districts.