Conspiracy theory: weathermen can forecast the weather!

January 12, 2010 11:22am CST
Ever since that fateful day in October 1987 when weather man Michael Fish said "Apparently a lady rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well, don't worry, if you're watching, there isn't", only for a few hours later a hurricane to hit, the weather forecasts have been a general sort of bemusement for me. Often wrong, often contradicting each other across the TV stations, they never seem to really know. For example today’s UK national weather said snow will approach from the South West but will clear before it hits the East. Minutes later the local forecast came on for the East where it said the snow from the South West will reach the East leaving a covering in many places. Turn the channels another forecast says that the snow will move its way across to the East and then move Northwards. Who do you believe? Now I know forecasting the weather is a difficult, inexact science but at times it feels like that they pop their heads out the window, stick a finger in the air and then just make a stab in the dark! At times it feels like that between all these different stations and forecasters they are conspiring together so that between them they can cover every single option. So is it a conspiracy that these forecasters have come up with to cover their own butts or do your weather forecasters get it more right than wrong?
3 responses
@Torunn (8609)
• Norway
12 Jan 10
Lately, they have been quite right here, but then it has been very easy to predict the weather. Blue skies, sun, icy cold for about 2 weeks :-) Normally I would say that they are pretty good at short-time weather forecast, whereas the long-term once can be a bit up and down. Sometime it's right, and sometime it's just completly wrong. I woulnd't mind them being a bit wrong about tomorrow, it's supposed to be -13 again and I think -5 sounds much better *crosses fingers*
• United States
16 Jan 10
pft..our forecasters are almost always wrong.i don't believe anything til i see it myself.last week i had to shovel about a foot of "dusting".
@nautilus33 (1827)
12 Jan 10
HI! I think it is more correctly if we say, that weathermen are trying to forecast the weather and sometimes they succeed