Minor things that bother you

[jeffandnicole]

I've found the short term weather forecasts to be fine. The only baffling thing is when they say 0% chance of rain and it rains. That I can't understand.

My understanding is that "x% chance of something" isn't the expected amount of time during which the something will occur; it's the percentage of times the something has happened in the past when conditions were the same as they are now (or are expected to be).  So "0% chance of rain" means it's never rained before when conditions were as they are now.  It doesn't mean that it's not actually raining now.

Go on TV as a weather forecaster and tell everyone that even though it's currently raining, there's a 0% chance that it's raining.

That will be the last forecast that forecaster ever forecasts.

[jeffandnicole]

A bunch of posts on the previous page explains why weather forecasters don't really even need to try.   They have way too many defenders.

What does a "Correct" forecast mean?  Did they hit the temperature exactly right?  Were they 2 degrees off plus or minus (giving them a 5 degree variation?).

When "they're better than a generation ago"...in what ways?  Before you attempt to answer this question - most people defending weather forecasters will point to hurricane forecasts...which still give hundreds of miles of a possible landfall.  But more so, show me where local daily forecasts have gotten better.  Because there are endless jokes today about how weather forecasting is the only profession where you can be wrong and keep your job. It's the same joke that was make decades ago.  So...are they really better...or do we just have a lot more data to look at, which, again, talks about the future, not the past.

And remember - if you jumped on me saying that no weather forecaster said they can nail a forecast 3 days out...then that's pretty much proof they haven't gotten better from a generation or two ago, which they also couldn't nail a forecast 3 days out.

[Scott5114]

And remember - if you jumped on me saying that no weather forecaster said they can nail a forecast 3 days out...then that's pretty much proof they haven't gotten better from a generation or two ago, which they also couldn't nail a forecast 3 days out.

You can't nail a forecast 3 days out either, though, so what are you trying to prove here?

The reason that you get people "defending" them is that it's a hard job where if one little thing is unaccounted for, it snowballs and makes the forecast "wrong", but if they get it wrong it is normally pretty fucking low stakes ("oh no, I wore my raincoat and it didn't rain!").

That said, having lived in a place where the weather was life or death a few times a year, they got it right enough when it mattered. I don't remember any instances of "surprise! EF5 out of nowhere!" the entire time I lived in Oklahoma.

Also, maybe your city's weather is just boring, so you get shit meteorologists. The good ones tend to congregate in places with interesting weather...like Norman, Oklahoma. I can't imagine anyone really dreams of growing up and working for NWS Las Vegas (it was 64 and sunny today, it will be 64 and sunny tomorrow, and it will be 65 and sunny on Thursday!)

[jeffandnicole]

And remember - if you jumped on me saying that no weather forecaster said they can nail a forecast 3 days out...then that's pretty much proof they haven't gotten better from a generation or two ago, which they also couldn't nail a forecast 3 days out.

You can't nail a forecast 3 days out either, though, so what are you trying to prove here?

The reason that you get people "defending" them is that it's a hard job where if one little thing is unaccounted for, it snowballs and makes the forecast "wrong", but if they get it wrong it is normally pretty fucking low stakes ("oh no, I wore my raincoat and it didn't rain!").

That said, having lived in a place where the weather was life or death a few times a year, they got it right enough when it mattered. I don't remember any instances of "surprise! EF5 out of nowhere!" the entire time I lived in Oklahoma.

Also, maybe your city's weather is just boring, so you get shit meteorologists. The good ones tend to congregate in places with interesting weather...like Norman, Oklahoma. I can't imagine anyone really dreams of growing up and working for NWS Las Vegas (it was 64 and sunny today, it will be 64 and sunny tomorrow, and it will be 65 and sunny on Thursday!)

Admittedly, Vegas forecasting is boring. Even if it's a string of 110 degree days and 90 at midnight, it's basically that for seemingly weeks on end in the summer.

Also - you reference the worst of the worst tornados, and that they were never a surprise. Which, Good, because I don't know if I want to live in a region which deals with conditions like that. But that's something that occurs rarely. I'm talking about day to day stuff. If a sunny day is rainy, it's annoying. If it's 70 instead of 75, meh. But the forecast is wrong. And this occurs almost so frequently that were conditioned to not even think about it - we just say "oh, it's cooler than what they said it would be" and we move on.

Here's a fairly good, albeit lengthy, article about a Philly Meteorologist. https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/12/07/philadelphia-winter-forecast-hurricane-schwartz/

It starts about a winter outlook, but there's more to it. And one of those mores: it talks about specific forecasts that he nailed while others didn't. But again, they're the memorable storms. We're not hearing about the days when temps were considerably off their mark. Tell us about the overall accuracy, not 2 forecasts over a 20 year period.

[Rothman]

I do think weather forecasting has improved greatly over the years.

I've juat found the attitude towards when they flub forecasts -- winter weather severity still eludes them consistently -- to cause me a lot of eyerolling.

[kkt]

I don't think meteorologists need to explain why they're wrong.  They just need to admit it.

They are not wrong, usually.  They are working with imperfect information in a statistical science.

Sure, which are solid ingredients to being wrong.

If you're betting that your opponent in poker only has a 8% chance of his draw card filling his inside straight, if he wins it doesn't necessarily follow that you calculated the odds wrongly.

[Rothman]

I don't think meteorologists need to explain why they're wrong.  They just need to admit it.

They are not wrong, usually.  They are working with imperfect information in a statistical science.

Sure, which are solid ingredients to being wrong.

If you're betting that your opponent in poker only has a 8% chance of his draw card filling his inside straight, if he wins it doesn't necessarily follow that you calculated the odds wrongly.

Calculating odds correctly does not mean one's forecast is correct.

A lost bet is a lost bet.

[vdeane]

I've found the short term weather forecasts to be fine. The only baffling thing is when they say 0% chance of rain and it rains. That I can't understand.

My understanding is that "x% chance of something" isn't the expected amount of time during which the something will occur; it's the percentage of times the something has happened in the past when conditions were the same as they are now (or are expected to be).  So "0% chance of rain" means it's never rained before when conditions were as they are now.  It doesn't mean that it's not actually raining now.

Go on TV as a weather forecaster and tell everyone that even though it's currently raining, there's a 0% chance that it's raining.

That will be the last forecast that forecaster ever forecasts.

It worked for Karen Smith:

[Plutonic Panda]

Imagine being a meteorologist in Hawaii

[kkt]

I don't think meteorologists need to explain why they're wrong.  They just need to admit it.

They are not wrong, usually.  They are working with imperfect information in a statistical science.

Sure, which are solid ingredients to being wrong.

If you're betting that your opponent in poker only has a 8% chance of his draw card filling his inside straight, if he wins it doesn't necessarily follow that you calculated the odds wrongly.

Calculating odds correctly does not mean one's forecast is correct.

A lost bet is a lost bet.

You would not have been wrong to bet according to the odds, and in the long run you'd come out ahead.

Weather forecasts have improved.  I see it mostly in the forecasts 2-3 days out, which used to be little better than chance but now are right much more often than not. 

There was a weather radar installed about 10 years ago on the Washington coast, that looks out to sea well, and that's part of the reason.  See this blog post by Cliff Mass advocating for it:  https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2009/01/coastal-weather-radar.html

[Scott5114]

But that's something that occurs rarely.

Oklahoma gets way more tornadoes than you realize, I think. They're more common than snow, for instance.

Also - you reference the worst of the worst tornados, and that they were never a surprise. Which, Good, because I don't know if I want to live in a region which deals with conditions like that. But that's something that occurs rarely. I'm talking about day to day stuff. If a sunny day is rainy, it's annoying. If it's 70 instead of 75, meh. But the forecast is wrong. And this occurs almost so frequently that were conditioned to not even think about it - we just say "oh, it's cooler than what they said it would be" and we move on.

Okay, so why does it matter if it's wrong, then? That's the thing I don't get.

[JayhawkCO]

I don't think meteorologists need to explain why they're wrong.  They just need to admit it.

They are not wrong, usually.  They are working with imperfect information in a statistical science.

Sure, which are solid ingredients to being wrong.

If you're betting that your opponent in poker only has a 8% chance of his draw card filling his inside straight, if he wins it doesn't necessarily follow that you calculated the odds wrongly.

Calculating odds correctly does not mean one's forecast is correct.

A lost bet is a lost bet.

Don't be results oriented, bro.

[mgk920]

Imagine being a meteorologist in Hawaii

 

A two degree temperature variance in one day is MAJOR NEWS!

Mike

[Max Rockatansky]

Pretty much everything about CarFax.  I don't particularly care for every service center I visit giving them my vehicle information.  I likewise never signed up for anything with CarFax but nonetheless get their emails.  I usually just spam out the emails but on occasion one slips through into my inbox.

[Rothman]

Pretty much everything about CarFax.  I don't particularly care for every service center I visit giving them my vehicle information.  I likewise never signed up for anything with CarFax but nonetheless get their emails.  I usually just spam out the emails but on occasion one slips through into my inbox.

What shenanigans can ensue?

[Max Rockatansky]

Pretty much everything about CarFax.  I don't particularly care for every service center I visit giving them my vehicle information.  I likewise never signed up for anything with CarFax but nonetheless get their emails.  I usually just spam out the emails but on occasion one slips through into my inbox.

What shenanigans can ensue?

Other than the minor annoyance of having to delete extra emails, not much. 

[kkt]

When transportation departments squeeze in another lane by narrowing all the lanes and the shoulders and it puts the seam between different pours of concrete right on the path my tires must take when I am centered on the lane, so I have to keep constant pressure on the wheel to avoid being pushed to one side.

[Scott5114]

When transportation departments squeeze in another lane by narrowing all the lanes and the shoulders and it puts the seam between different pours of concrete right on the path my tires must take when I am centered on the lane, so I have to keep constant pressure on the wheel to avoid being pushed to one side.

It's okay, you can say TxDOT.

[kkt]

When transportation departments squeeze in another lane by narrowing all the lanes and the shoulders and it puts the seam between different pours of concrete right on the path my tires must take when I am centered on the lane, so I have to keep constant pressure on the wheel to avoid being pushed to one side.

It's okay, you can say TxDOT.

I was thinking Washington and California, having no recent experience with Texas.
I expect all states do it, though.

[thenetwork]

Going into a public restroom where everything has touch-free sensors...

...and the one that DOESN'T work is the motion-activated sink after you lathered up your hands.

Fortunately, they had an accessible sink where I could rinse off on the other side of the c-store.

[tchafe1978]

Going into a public restroom where everything has touch-free sensors...

...and the one that DOESN'T work is the motion-activated sink after you lathered up your hands.

Fortunately, they had an accessible sink where I could rinse off on the other side of the c-store.

Even worse is when the power is out, and you need to use the bathroom, and none of the toilets will flush and the sinks won't work without power. Happened more than once at the store I work at. There should be a backup way to flush the toilets and turn the faucet on when the power is out.

[CtrlAltDel]

The new name of the Tappan Zee Bridge seemed to bother someone:

[Max Rockatansky]

Nah, just someone practicing graffiti removal.

[Roadgeekteen]

The new name of the Tappan Zee Bridge seemed to bother someone:

Now that his son is disgraced hopefully nobody cares enough to fix it.

[wxfree]

This has been bothering me for decades.  Many years ago, there were daily bridge columns (not the road kind) in the newspaper.  Even in today's diminished newspapers there's a weekly column with people writing in and asking for advice, a "Dear Abby" of card games.

It's been going on so long that it's just a part of the world and I mostly don't question it, but when I do question it, I'm confounded.  I watched a bridge television show back in the 90s.  It had a dummy, which I think was a player who set their cards face-up where everyone can see them and the partner played them.  I don't know if that's how you play or if it was just for educational purposes.

I don't remember anything about the gameplay.  I don't even remember why I watched it, although "it was the 90s" might be a good answer.  But I've never seen instructional television or newspaper columns about Uno or gin rummy.  Nothing else is treated that way.  Today's column has readers asking for advice on specific plays and general rules, and it reminds me of what you might ask about chess plays.  Is bridge so complex that you must study under a master for a lifetime in order to play it properly?  Why are there columns for bridge but not chess?  Was there a chess TV show that I missed?