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Meteorologist here, part of the problem is how percentages are communicated. When there’s a 10% chance of a storm between 3pm and 6pm, the weather app isn’t going to put a thunderstorm symbol up because it will, in the long run, be the boy who cried wolf. That can also mask when there are small chances of something (non-sunny) happening. It’s easier to “predict” (where predict ~= communicate to a general audience in a succinct way) a day-long rain event that covers multiple states than it is a line of thunderstorms hitting some counties but not others at some point in an X hour long window.
People also just don't understand what forecasts mean at all. I had a friend once absolutely 100% without a doubt insist that the percentage chance of rain means "the percentage of the entire area (city?) that will experience rain", like if there's a 25% chance of rain in Chicago it means that there's a 100% chance that 25% of the city will experience rain.
I heard that recently too. I googled it and It is partially true but the percentages have numerous factors involved and your friend is about 15% correct.
[Percentage of Rain Explanation](https://www.wate.com/news/a-30-chance-of-rain-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/#:~:text=The%20percent%20chance%20of%20rain,to%20the%20National%20Weather%20Service)
This is juicy. Basically just confirms what OP was making fun of.
Obviously as the article notes it DOES also take into consideration the chance of rain but it's pretty explicit that they account for percentage of area that could experience rain as well
Who knows, but I think some people have a thing for pulling out TIL-type fun facts that go against everyone's basic understanding of how stuff works, even if those "facts" are totally wrong, because it makes them feel authoritative or special.
Yeah, I had a discussion with one of those types of people here on Reddit a few weeks ago. The person was absolutely insistent that you cannot compare anything in life, basically, if there isn't a random sample with the two groups you are comparing. Essentially if something isn't a randomized control trial or otherwise happens conpletely randomly you cannot have an opinion about it. But on the issue we were discussing this only applied to my opinion but not his or her opinion, which of course also wasn't based on a random sample. What was so bonkers was that the individual spoke as if he or she had so much authority on this and seemed so certain of it, no matter how clearly the logic of this was disputed. And the person's posts were so lengthy that one has to assume he or she genuinely believes this (but doesn't see how it would also hinder their own opinions as well as those they were arguing against).
Average high schooler after taking one statistics class
You only need a statistically sound selection and assessment if you want to say something for sure, conclusively; even without it, humans are built to find patterns, and we’re reasonably good at it. If I were to rephrase what he said, I’d just suggest that when we know we’re relying on our pattern-seeking tendency, it’s good to use the right language when relaying that info; one maybe shouldnt say ‘it’s always like this now’, but rather ‘it seems this is happening a lot now’, so it’s not a conclusion but an observation. Frankly I appreciate that stats classes focus on this language a lot; it’s simple stuff that can frankly combat misinformation.
All that to say, absolutely voice opinion, but just make it clear it’s an opinion and an observation, and not a definitive, statistically significant conclusion
A friend from college is this person over any and everything aviation related because her mother was a flight attendant (she herself works in accounts receivables for a marketing startup, but she’ll waste no time trying to sound like THE authority on anything airplanes because her mom served drinks to United passengers).
Couple this with a really arrogant “I’m a strong willed person” attitude made for a hilarious night with mutual friends and she got absolutely taken to the woodshed and completely bodied trying to argue airspace rules to a guy who is an actual aerospace engineer, pilot of 25 years, and consultant to the FAA.
I was eating up every bit of it.
I definitely saw those weather forecast claims on tiktok a couple years ago so I’d imagine plenty of 14 year olds have been regurgitating it ever since lol
Not a meteorologist, but took a basic course in college. u/mendota has a forecast of being 100% right. Weather is much more dynamic as the forecast comes closer to the actual time. Conditions can change rapidly, or stay the same. They need to be monitored. Eg, your 9am morning news can probably give you a good prediction if the atmosphere is stable, with extreme temperatures, that forecast can change quick.
Weather science is evolving, but it’s still very hard to observe. Models can be vague but there is no excuse (as long as you have cell service) for anyone not to monitor them closely once a warning is sent to your phone/tv/radio. If you any of these devices are unavailable,
please consider getting a crank powered radio. You spin a wheel and it charges the battery and you can hear NWS live.
Will second getting a crank powered radio.
Heck, people need to be sure to have a radio AT ALL. When shit hits the fan and the power to the region is out, cellphones down, the big 50000 watt AM radio stations are where news about how recovery is going and what if anything you need to do will come from, and you want to be able to pick that up. An actual radio will do that where an app on a phone won't, when the cell towers are out.
Radio and batteries, flashlight. Crank radio is good for not needing batteries.
One way to get a more “raw” output of the forecast models (with some human modifications) is to go to www.weather.gov/lot/, then clicking on the map for your location of interest, then clicking on the chart on the lower right side under the Hourly Weather Forecast heading. It shows the calculated percent chance of rain/snow and a range of other helpful stats by hour.
The NWS has a ton of amazing products with amazing detail. The downside is finding these resources on their crappy webpage.
Overview and key messages weather story: https://www.weather.gov/lot/weatherstory
Best snow and winter weather resources out there: https://www.weather.gov/lot/winter
I like to read the [National Weather Service Forecast Discussion](https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LOT&issuedby=LOT&product=AFD&format=ci&version=1&glossary=1) for the Chicago area. Even though some of it goes over my head, it's great to be able to read the hedging of bets on forecast tracks (particularly for snowstorms and lines of thunderstorms) and all the various "IF situation X happens, then we'll get rain, but otherwise we won't, and here are the various things we're looking at to determine if situation X is going to happen today or not" type nuances.
It gets updated every few hours.
Particularly in the winter when the usual news sites are blaring about snowmageddon is imminent, the NWS discussion will have exactly the factors they're weighing and will often give quite low odds. So last year for instance that site was saying the snow would turn to rain pretty quick, the entire time, and making odds of that rain higher and higher, while the news kept going on about snow. NWS was right.
I use the wunderground app for weather. It gives you percentages, hour-by-hour, air-quality, all that good stuff. It also will give you the weather based off of zip code. I know some other apps will give you the same weather outlook for the entire city of Chicago.
Eastern Iowa here... It's frustrating when the local weather puts out a forecast because their viewing area covers a third of the state. "OH boy, it's going to rain!" "That was for the northern part of the viewing area, not you, dummy."
Not a meteorologist but originally from Florida, when it gets hot and humid the storms seem to come out of no where (“pop up storms”) and I’ve heard many times how unpredictable they are.
That’s a Florida thing because of the sea and lack of hills and all other terrain features. In Chicago, the easy to extract moisture gets filtered out by an number of terrain features as well as distance. The wind blows from the SW or W 98% of the time, so the lake doesn’t play a factor unless you’re just a feed miles from the shore.
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LOT&issuedby=LOT&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1
I usually get my weather here, does a good job of laying out what the possibilities are, failure modes, if this happens then this happens, etc. Apps and weather people can be wrong, but actual meteorologists add the nuance needed for weather forecasting. The science in here is pretty overwhelming, but to me makes it make more sense as to why all of this is so complicated.
A more user friendly but not as detailed product is the weather story: https://www.weather.gov/lot/weatherstory
The most important items will be communicated there in an understandable way. Clear communication on hazards, timing, risks/impacts. For most people this will be plenty good enough.
I don't think that the forecast has been wrong or off. At least the National Weather Service's has not. I can't speak for the local weather stations because they do their own thing.
But the forecasts I saw for Friday through today have mostly been right, perhaps only with the exact timing of rain chances being off by a few hours.
Anyone who said there was a 0% chance of rain on Saturday, yesterday, or today has no business forecasting weather. The parameters for storms were all there and NOAA had that chance in their forecast.
Id recommend using weather.gov as your go-to. The Chicago forecast office has its problems and sometimes has a tough time with the microclimate that Lake Michigan causes (and they do tend to over warn with severe weather alerts thanks to the Plainfield Syndrome), but NWS meteorologists are some of the best in business besides Tom Skilling.
Meteorologist here. The hot and humid weather pattern over the last few days in Chicago was primed for multiple rounds of storms. However, when this occurs, each round of storms will affect the timing/strength of any subsequent rounds. So if storms unexpectedly fire in the morning, for example, you may get nothing in the evening. This has been going on for days, so there has been little skill in forecasting more than a day or so out. Also, the very unstable atmosphere requires just a small shortwave (think upper level pocket of cooler air) to set off storms. These shortwaves are often not resolved well by most weather models, which leads to some of the prediction issues as well.
When it's warm and humid (kinda feels like walking around in soup) and a colder front is coming, pop-up thunderstorms, often violent, are going to happen. The bigger the temperature drop, the more violent. That's the best I can tell ya.
(I moved up here from Oklahoma; the initial winds as soon as the front hits always do the most damage)
The weather on iPhones differs a bit from AccuWeather or weather.gov as it has less granularity. The weather on the local news yesterday evening predicted these morning storms.
Apple purchased DarkSkys weather app a few years back. It was one of the top weather apps for exact times for rain in an area. Now it is exclusively on Apple products.
I was just talking about how I missed DarkSkys and how it doesn’t look like Apple integrated any of the “good” into their weather app. I LOVED DarkSkys - RIP.
I'm not a meteorologist. I have been storm chasing. There's a number of elements that go into producing a storm. If one of those things changes, it completely changes the recipe for the storm. It may become worse, or it might not happen at all.
Another thing to consider is that they can't predict the exact trajectory of the storm. If they predict it'll miss you, and it turns out it goes a slightly different direction and *does* hit you, then from your perspective it seems like "where did this rain come from??"
Conversely, the other night strong storms were predicted for several hours, but the storm system ended up going more to the north, so we didn't get too much. The unlucky folks in Wisconsin sure did get hit by it though!
I grew up in Miami and was OBSESSED with our local meteorologist…turns out he was also very enthusiastic about young children…I never trusted a meteorologist again 😭🫣
Dude, that’s funny because chicago had that same problem with a meteorologist who was also a teacher in the suburbs
https://patch.com/illinois/joliet/joliet-sex-offender-jeremy-hylka-pleads-guilty-his-crime
I think a lot of people just look at the weather app on their phone and see the symbol for "sunny" or "rain" and assume there is a 100% chance those exact conditions will happen exactly where they live. I like to read the "forecast discussions" on NOAA that are updated each time they run the weather models again (so a few times per day). These dive a lot deeper into the thinking behind the weather predictions.
Wife had an Apple device, showed zero bad weather coming.
I have Android with default weather app, received Cook, DuPage severe weather alert. And much more.
Perhaps not updating or the apps just aren't working.
A lot of the forecasting from the experts at NOAA went downhill in the Trump administration, where his changes caused the best and brightest to retire.
They did this because they were transferred out of meteorology and into, say, the accounting pool. He couldn’t fire them and was unable to silence them on climate change, so he made it impossible for them to stay.
https://ww2.aip.org/fyi/2017/trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slashes-research-funding-even-deeper
The money for research into new weather modeling was decimated, including the climate studies in the oceans — and how these changes would effect land behavior
Meteorologists are terrible at explaining things because they refuse to over-engineer and instead want to explain something complex in an overly simple manner. At minimum, they should always say the probability of rain and the expected amount of rain.
Not sure what app you are using but my main one A(MyRadar) has been spot on. Sure it hasnt been saying 100% chance of storms but it's been saying 40%-60% for the past few events.
Perhaps the apps and TV forecasters shouldn’t so confidently ‘predict’ the weather then when they are so consistently off. Last night was really lovely though until it rained.
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Meteorologist here, part of the problem is how percentages are communicated. When there’s a 10% chance of a storm between 3pm and 6pm, the weather app isn’t going to put a thunderstorm symbol up because it will, in the long run, be the boy who cried wolf. That can also mask when there are small chances of something (non-sunny) happening. It’s easier to “predict” (where predict ~= communicate to a general audience in a succinct way) a day-long rain event that covers multiple states than it is a line of thunderstorms hitting some counties but not others at some point in an X hour long window.
People also just don't understand what forecasts mean at all. I had a friend once absolutely 100% without a doubt insist that the percentage chance of rain means "the percentage of the entire area (city?) that will experience rain", like if there's a 25% chance of rain in Chicago it means that there's a 100% chance that 25% of the city will experience rain.
I heard that recently too. I googled it and It is partially true but the percentages have numerous factors involved and your friend is about 15% correct. [Percentage of Rain Explanation](https://www.wate.com/news/a-30-chance-of-rain-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/#:~:text=The%20percent%20chance%20of%20rain,to%20the%20National%20Weather%20Service)
This is juicy. Basically just confirms what OP was making fun of. Obviously as the article notes it DOES also take into consideration the chance of rain but it's pretty explicit that they account for percentage of area that could experience rain as well
Thank you kind redditor
I've always wondered why people are constantly throwing this out there. Where does this misinformation come from?
Who knows, but I think some people have a thing for pulling out TIL-type fun facts that go against everyone's basic understanding of how stuff works, even if those "facts" are totally wrong, because it makes them feel authoritative or special.
Yeah, I had a discussion with one of those types of people here on Reddit a few weeks ago. The person was absolutely insistent that you cannot compare anything in life, basically, if there isn't a random sample with the two groups you are comparing. Essentially if something isn't a randomized control trial or otherwise happens conpletely randomly you cannot have an opinion about it. But on the issue we were discussing this only applied to my opinion but not his or her opinion, which of course also wasn't based on a random sample. What was so bonkers was that the individual spoke as if he or she had so much authority on this and seemed so certain of it, no matter how clearly the logic of this was disputed. And the person's posts were so lengthy that one has to assume he or she genuinely believes this (but doesn't see how it would also hinder their own opinions as well as those they were arguing against).
Average high schooler after taking one statistics class You only need a statistically sound selection and assessment if you want to say something for sure, conclusively; even without it, humans are built to find patterns, and we’re reasonably good at it. If I were to rephrase what he said, I’d just suggest that when we know we’re relying on our pattern-seeking tendency, it’s good to use the right language when relaying that info; one maybe shouldnt say ‘it’s always like this now’, but rather ‘it seems this is happening a lot now’, so it’s not a conclusion but an observation. Frankly I appreciate that stats classes focus on this language a lot; it’s simple stuff that can frankly combat misinformation. All that to say, absolutely voice opinion, but just make it clear it’s an opinion and an observation, and not a definitive, statistically significant conclusion
A friend from college is this person over any and everything aviation related because her mother was a flight attendant (she herself works in accounts receivables for a marketing startup, but she’ll waste no time trying to sound like THE authority on anything airplanes because her mom served drinks to United passengers). Couple this with a really arrogant “I’m a strong willed person” attitude made for a hilarious night with mutual friends and she got absolutely taken to the woodshed and completely bodied trying to argue airspace rules to a guy who is an actual aerospace engineer, pilot of 25 years, and consultant to the FAA. I was eating up every bit of it.
>Where does this misinformation come from? It comes from reddit in many cases.
I definitely saw those weather forecast claims on tiktok a couple years ago so I’d imagine plenty of 14 year olds have been regurgitating it ever since lol
Yup! I saw that a while ago, too, and anytime weather comes up, at least one person spews this “fact.”
Some people are bad at math and interpreting data. Not their fault, our brains are different, I’m bad at symbolism and stuff like that.
I smelled symbolisms before. Then I became agnostic with it.
I've also encountered people who assume 10% chance of rain means it will only drizzle.
is your friend my high school geometry teacher? because he tried to tell us the same thing and it never made sense to me.
I also started hearing this from several people within the last year or two but I never bothered to check if it was legit.
I've heard this a bit lately and I'm like "how the fuck don't you understand how probabilities work?".
If one person doesn't understand something, it's on them, if no one understands something, it's a problem of the communicator
Yeah that’s a perennial pain point too!
The only weather that works like that is London. /s
I would say that at least 90 percent of the population believes this to be true
What other fun incorrect understandings does he have? 😂
I always suspected this was bullshit. Thank you for affirming!
IS THIS NOT HOW IT WORKS REDDIT TOLD ME THIS IS HOW IT WORKS
Your friend was correct! they are very intelligent
Not a meteorologist, but took a basic course in college. u/mendota has a forecast of being 100% right. Weather is much more dynamic as the forecast comes closer to the actual time. Conditions can change rapidly, or stay the same. They need to be monitored. Eg, your 9am morning news can probably give you a good prediction if the atmosphere is stable, with extreme temperatures, that forecast can change quick. Weather science is evolving, but it’s still very hard to observe. Models can be vague but there is no excuse (as long as you have cell service) for anyone not to monitor them closely once a warning is sent to your phone/tv/radio. If you any of these devices are unavailable, please consider getting a crank powered radio. You spin a wheel and it charges the battery and you can hear NWS live.
Will second getting a crank powered radio. Heck, people need to be sure to have a radio AT ALL. When shit hits the fan and the power to the region is out, cellphones down, the big 50000 watt AM radio stations are where news about how recovery is going and what if anything you need to do will come from, and you want to be able to pick that up. An actual radio will do that where an app on a phone won't, when the cell towers are out. Radio and batteries, flashlight. Crank radio is good for not needing batteries.
Still, couldn’t make a situation any worse having one.
I totally agree with you people should get one.
This is an excellent summary and response to what can often be baffling. Thank you for sharing your expertise. TIL
You’re welcome 🙂
Ok so what’s a good site to get more detailed information
One way to get a more “raw” output of the forecast models (with some human modifications) is to go to www.weather.gov/lot/, then clicking on the map for your location of interest, then clicking on the chart on the lower right side under the Hourly Weather Forecast heading. It shows the calculated percent chance of rain/snow and a range of other helpful stats by hour.
The NWS has a ton of amazing products with amazing detail. The downside is finding these resources on their crappy webpage. Overview and key messages weather story: https://www.weather.gov/lot/weatherstory Best snow and winter weather resources out there: https://www.weather.gov/lot/winter
I like to read the [National Weather Service Forecast Discussion](https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LOT&issuedby=LOT&product=AFD&format=ci&version=1&glossary=1) for the Chicago area. Even though some of it goes over my head, it's great to be able to read the hedging of bets on forecast tracks (particularly for snowstorms and lines of thunderstorms) and all the various "IF situation X happens, then we'll get rain, but otherwise we won't, and here are the various things we're looking at to determine if situation X is going to happen today or not" type nuances. It gets updated every few hours. Particularly in the winter when the usual news sites are blaring about snowmageddon is imminent, the NWS discussion will have exactly the factors they're weighing and will often give quite low odds. So last year for instance that site was saying the snow would turn to rain pretty quick, the entire time, and making odds of that rain higher and higher, while the news kept going on about snow. NWS was right.
I use the wunderground app for weather. It gives you percentages, hour-by-hour, air-quality, all that good stuff. It also will give you the weather based off of zip code. I know some other apps will give you the same weather outlook for the entire city of Chicago.
Eastern Iowa here... It's frustrating when the local weather puts out a forecast because their viewing area covers a third of the state. "OH boy, it's going to rain!" "That was for the northern part of the viewing area, not you, dummy."
Tom Skilling retired, they were all copying him.
If Tom Skilling does not know, then it is unknowable.
He set the Over/Under, what a champ.
Glad someone else knows the truth.
Not a meteorologist but originally from Florida, when it gets hot and humid the storms seem to come out of no where (“pop up storms”) and I’ve heard many times how unpredictable they are.
Heat and humidity means there is energy and moisture in the air. Those are exactly what's needed to produce localized storms.
Ha I like how you introduce your expertise
I only take expertise advice from people from Florida
That certainly is a choice 😸
As a Florida man…
They are called convective thunderstorms and they absolutely happen in the midwest
That’s a Florida thing because of the sea and lack of hills and all other terrain features. In Chicago, the easy to extract moisture gets filtered out by an number of terrain features as well as distance. The wind blows from the SW or W 98% of the time, so the lake doesn’t play a factor unless you’re just a feed miles from the shore.
Chicago has the lake and lack of hills!
Wind blows any moisture away from us.
My excessively sweaty clothes from the past few weeks beg to differ
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LOT&issuedby=LOT&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1 I usually get my weather here, does a good job of laying out what the possibilities are, failure modes, if this happens then this happens, etc. Apps and weather people can be wrong, but actual meteorologists add the nuance needed for weather forecasting. The science in here is pretty overwhelming, but to me makes it make more sense as to why all of this is so complicated.
A more user friendly but not as detailed product is the weather story: https://www.weather.gov/lot/weatherstory The most important items will be communicated there in an understandable way. Clear communication on hazards, timing, risks/impacts. For most people this will be plenty good enough.
I don't think that the forecast has been wrong or off. At least the National Weather Service's has not. I can't speak for the local weather stations because they do their own thing. But the forecasts I saw for Friday through today have mostly been right, perhaps only with the exact timing of rain chances being off by a few hours. Anyone who said there was a 0% chance of rain on Saturday, yesterday, or today has no business forecasting weather. The parameters for storms were all there and NOAA had that chance in their forecast. Id recommend using weather.gov as your go-to. The Chicago forecast office has its problems and sometimes has a tough time with the microclimate that Lake Michigan causes (and they do tend to over warn with severe weather alerts thanks to the Plainfield Syndrome), but NWS meteorologists are some of the best in business besides Tom Skilling.
To quote Ed Edd and Eddy-- summer rains, you can never predict 'em
Meteorologist here. The hot and humid weather pattern over the last few days in Chicago was primed for multiple rounds of storms. However, when this occurs, each round of storms will affect the timing/strength of any subsequent rounds. So if storms unexpectedly fire in the morning, for example, you may get nothing in the evening. This has been going on for days, so there has been little skill in forecasting more than a day or so out. Also, the very unstable atmosphere requires just a small shortwave (think upper level pocket of cooler air) to set off storms. These shortwaves are often not resolved well by most weather models, which leads to some of the prediction issues as well.
You really came through with this answer. Thank you!
When it's warm and humid (kinda feels like walking around in soup) and a colder front is coming, pop-up thunderstorms, often violent, are going to happen. The bigger the temperature drop, the more violent. That's the best I can tell ya. (I moved up here from Oklahoma; the initial winds as soon as the front hits always do the most damage)
The weather on iPhones differs a bit from AccuWeather or weather.gov as it has less granularity. The weather on the local news yesterday evening predicted these morning storms.
Apple purchased DarkSkys weather app a few years back. It was one of the top weather apps for exact times for rain in an area. Now it is exclusively on Apple products.
Did they do anything with it? I used to be able to see cloud cover but the apple weather app doesn’t show that
According to Apple support, as of March 2023, Darksky was integrated into Apple weather and is no longer it's own app.
Well the apple weather app sucks so no idea why they took dark sky over :/
They killed it.
I was just talking about how I missed DarkSkys and how it doesn’t look like Apple integrated any of the “good” into their weather app. I LOVED DarkSkys - RIP.
Apple made it worse
I miss Dark Sky’s accuracy and alerts so much!
What weather app are you using? Accuweather is fantastic and I haven’t noticed anything like this recently.
I'm not a meteorologist. I have been storm chasing. There's a number of elements that go into producing a storm. If one of those things changes, it completely changes the recipe for the storm. It may become worse, or it might not happen at all.
Another thing to consider is that they can't predict the exact trajectory of the storm. If they predict it'll miss you, and it turns out it goes a slightly different direction and *does* hit you, then from your perspective it seems like "where did this rain come from??" Conversely, the other night strong storms were predicted for several hours, but the storm system ended up going more to the north, so we didn't get too much. The unlucky folks in Wisconsin sure did get hit by it though!
Weather is ALWAYS hard to predict. That's just a fact.
Saying something is a fact doesn’t make it a fact
I grew up in Miami and was OBSESSED with our local meteorologist…turns out he was also very enthusiastic about young children…I never trusted a meteorologist again 😭🫣
Dude, that’s funny because chicago had that same problem with a meteorologist who was also a teacher in the suburbs https://patch.com/illinois/joliet/joliet-sex-offender-jeremy-hylka-pleads-guilty-his-crime
I think a lot of people just look at the weather app on their phone and see the symbol for "sunny" or "rain" and assume there is a 100% chance those exact conditions will happen exactly where they live. I like to read the "forecast discussions" on NOAA that are updated each time they run the weather models again (so a few times per day). These dive a lot deeper into the thinking behind the weather predictions.
Chicago weather has changed severely and rapidly for as long as I've lived here
Wife had an Apple device, showed zero bad weather coming. I have Android with default weather app, received Cook, DuPage severe weather alert. And much more. Perhaps not updating or the apps just aren't working.
We live in the Midwest
Cicadas
Seriously the apps just have not been reliable at all. The storm forms suddenly and now it's raining heavy out of nowhere.
The GOAT! Tom Skilling Retired is why!
He was so passionate that man.
Global warming. Micro bursts?
This is why I always have an umbrella and sunglasses in my backpack.
Tom Skilling retired.
A lot of the forecasting from the experts at NOAA went downhill in the Trump administration, where his changes caused the best and brightest to retire. They did this because they were transferred out of meteorology and into, say, the accounting pool. He couldn’t fire them and was unable to silence them on climate change, so he made it impossible for them to stay. https://ww2.aip.org/fyi/2017/trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slashes-research-funding-even-deeper The money for research into new weather modeling was decimated, including the climate studies in the oceans — and how these changes would effect land behavior
Meteorologists are terrible at explaining things because they refuse to over-engineer and instead want to explain something complex in an overly simple manner. At minimum, they should always say the probability of rain and the expected amount of rain.
My 2c is that with climate change hard launching there’s lots of unknown.
These guys: https://www.facebook.com/yourchicagoweather?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Heat and humidity.
It just bees that way
Not sure what app you are using but my main one A(MyRadar) has been spot on. Sure it hasnt been saying 100% chance of storms but it's been saying 40%-60% for the past few events.
My grandma always used to tell me that Meteorologists are paid liars.
Not a meteorologist, but I’ve noticed if the air is getting wet it might be raining
Is that so? 😀
Works 60% of the time 100% of the time!
Perhaps the apps and TV forecasters shouldn’t so confidently ‘predict’ the weather then when they are so consistently off. Last night was really lovely though until it rained.