These guys may know about meteors, but they don’t know a damn about the weather. It’s raining, but it’s evaporating before it hits the ground. Then it’s not raining dickweed!!!

I love the 10 day forecast that changes daily , laf .

Whelenman

Which western state do you live in ?
What you mention is Idaho-like rain - you can see a raindrop hit then disappear within a few seconds . A monsoon there settles the dust for 20 minutes .

A whole lot of guessing going on in that business!!

It's called Verga-- rain that doesn't hit the ground.

Michigan!

We had a lady on staff who one day mentioned that her son was a meteorologist. I tried to comfort her by pointing out that he was young and would hopefully get his life straightened out. Her level of humor appreciation appeared to be low.

We have a whole herd of Meteorologists around here and they seldom get the forecast even close. Like Yogi said "It's hard to predicts things, especially when it's about the future".

I'm a meteorologist. 30 years experience, but 0 years of forecasting. I don't trust those fu kkers either.

They are using the GEOPOT height for forcasts.

500 hPa (GPDM) and MSLP Geopotential height which the US National Weather Service defines as: roughly the height above sea level of a pressure level. For example, if a station reports that the 500mb height at its location is 5600m, it means that the level of the atmosphere over that station at which the atmospheric pressure is 500mb is 5600 meters above sea level. This is an estimated height based on temperature and pressure data. Mean Surface Level Pressure (MSLP) is usually shown on the 500hPa GPDM plots with contours. The 500hPa plots are useful for a range of reasons, one being that computer models usually forecast this level better than surface conditions at longer ranges.

They're all equally incorrect; you may as well watch the ones that got a boob job instead of a degree.

People are surprised when the weather forecast is wrong and can't believe how meteorologists got it wrong. I'm of the opposite mindset I am actually blown away, in light of the nature of weather, how often they get it correct. Frankly, color me impressed.

Amen, BigSky. At six this morning, my online source said to expect rain beginning at 10:30 a.m. and it wasn't raining when I looked out at 10:20 but it was at 10:45. That's pretty damn good in my book.

Shaman,

you may want to do a spell check on that.

It's "virga"

Verga has an entirely different meaning.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=La%20verga


Geno

I absolutely agree with that, but some could still benefit from the use of a window. 😉

For our area "they" get pretty close most times. It has to be difficult for them figuring out how much moisture is going to get squeezed out by the Cascades to the west and what will remain for us. If they predict less than an inch of snow, it's usually pretty dang close.

My wife has an "app" on her phone that gives us predictions like Rocky's, somedays they nail it, others not so much.

The funniest are the ones my relatives get from "The Weather Channel" on their phones predicting "Heavy Snow" in our area when we have a chance of 1/2" coming. I'm not sure if they have the same definition of heavy as we do here. For me, the Weather Channel is a joke.

Geno

Ha! "beat" me to it.🤣

Yeah,

Not sure I want to say the "verga" fell out of the sky!

La verga se cayo del cielo.

Geno

Around here, after all these years, I finally noticed how they figure how many inches of snow to forecast for. Whatever they call for I just cut it in half and I'm usually closer to correct than they are. Example - They call for 4 to 6 inches of snow........ So I figure we're gonna get 2 to 3 inches; and that's what it usually turns out to be. Then, recently I realized that if we get more than predicted; lots of people get angry and bitch about it; but if we get less there's no complaints. So they routinely over estimate those things as a C.Y.A. move.

We had a weatherman up here that got fired from the TV station after doing a commercial for someone. Station manager said it "impugned his credibility".

To which the fired guy replied, in essence, " Credibility? WTF- I'm a Weatherman!"

I "trust" Wunderground's 10 day about 3 days out - unless they are changing it daily. We get a lot of uncertainty from the north Pacific....

But frequently the 10 day comes thru as advertised. Surprising, when one considers the state of the art- and it is an art - from 40,50 years ago.

Someone once asked a weather bureau how they arrived a their percent chances for different types of weather predictions.

Their reply was, "there are ten meteorologists here. We all go look out the window and if all ten agree it's 100%, if five agree it's 50%, or if only two agree it's 20% chance."

"To which the fired guy replied, in essence, " Credibility? WTF- I'm a Weatherman!""

Reminds of a time many years ago when someone asked my what I did for a living. Told them I was a paid liar. You know? A weatherman. Boss chewed my ass out for over a half hour when that got back to him. All I said in response was, "People think we never get it right all I do is beat them to the draw. Not a hell of a lot they could say after that.
One time right at the end of our monsoon season the lead forecaster came out with no chance of thunderstorms. We'd been running a flyer at the end of out forecasts stating "Remember, thunderstorms can produce dangerous lightning, heavy rain and flash flooding." Well ten minutes later he calls and tells me to take it out of the forecast. I refused. He asked me on what basis did I feel there might be a storm. I told him is was just a gut feeling. He said remove it and I said back, "You want to change the forecast, do so and put your name on it." He let it stand and when my relief came in at noon he change the forecast like a good like boot licker. At two PM that afternoon there was a thunderstorm on the back side of the Catalina Mountains and there was a flash flood killing two hikers. I dunno. To this day by all rights there should not have been any chance of a storm but my gut said otherwise. I'll just add that the Vigaro hit the Mixmaster on that deal and we had people from the regional office down and somebody's head was gonna roll. All I can add is there was one very red faced Meteorologist when the smoke cleared.
Paul B.

That's the rub, Paul. Forecast dangerous weather and people think you're loony when it doesn't happen. But forecast mild and then somebody gets hurt or worse, and then they howl that you didn't warn them. It's probably better to cry wolf than shrug and let people get killed.

Our local guy, San Antonio, does a helluva a job.

I once wrote one of our local weathermen, who has since moved on to something else, about the fact that there are weather watches and warnings issued pretty much from the end of March to the start of November. He said that a number of years ago, during the Clinton administration if I remember correctly, a tornado came out of nowhere in Alabama. The National Weather Circus was told that that would never happen again, hence the constant running in circles yelling that the sky is falling.

My app on the iPhone is pretty accurate a day or two in advance. I can get a good forecast in a few seconds.

What ticks me off is the TV guys who take 5 or 10 minutes with their fancy electronic charts, telling me what the temperature was in every podunk town within 100 miles, etc. Waste of tmy time.

oh ..

You asked

This. Wx forecasting is very accurate these days IMO and I used have to pretty much live by the weather. Ya they're going to get it wrong 10% or whatever of the time. Duh! Its weather, it makes itself, eliminates it self and turns on a dime, high pressures fight low pressures there won't be a clear winner right off the bat etc etc. I think they do really well. Computer modeling has been a big boost.

Well, I know that when a watch is issued it just means that conditions are such that a storm, or potentially serious conditions could occur. Technically warnings are issued when the forecaster is pretty well convinced the bad is about to to happen.

One example. I was living in Nevada at the time and there was 6" of snow on the ground, completely overcast skies and them was a balmy 32 degrees when I went to work on the midnight shift. A t 1 AM when I went to take the weather observation the temp was 18 degrees and outside the sky was totally clear. Nor a cloud in sight and a full moon. I finished the observation and issued a hard freeze warning. The final low temp was 36 degrees below zero. We never got above 10 below zero for the next five days. What happened was the clouds moved out. With no clouds and their green house effect the temperature just radiated on out into space.

I can easily come out with a good half dozen more instances like the above but maybe you'll get the picture.
Paul B.

Anything over 24 hours is a flat-out guess...

In this area I find that weather underground does a decent job of “predicting” the weather. I use th ten day forecast as a general idea realizing that they may be able to predict a major front heading my way but may be off by a day or two.

I’ve found ScoutLook to do a good job of predicting wind direction for my tree stands- not perfect mind you, but pretty good.

I'm impressed that they get it right as often as they do.

Not that I could do any better,they're pretty damn good IMO.

Hardly.

OK, 25 hours...

You know the difference between a weatherman and a politician?













You know they're both going to lie to you - but weather forecasting is an honorable profession!