Snowstorm of 2001
The year ended with the approach of another winter storm. The late forecast on Friday night before New Years 2001 called for 6 to 10 inches of snow to start falling after midnight. We awoke Saturday morning to bright sunshine. Oops! The storm system had stayed offshore, and we got no precipitation at all. Of course, the biggest blunder came about two months later, when the news media bombarded us with forecasts and headlines of The Perfect Blizzard and The Storm of the Century.
For two days, the TV stations led each news broadcast with reports from the Storm Center, with live pictures of the snowplows-in-waiting, with archive video from blizzards of the past forty years, and with interviews of frenzied shoppers at grocery stores and hardware stores. Everyone in the mid-Atlantic region will certainly remember the first weekend in March, 2001, but only because the storm never happened (or barely happened).
On Monday morning, the weather forecasters were forced to defend their predictions, insisting that they said the blizzard was merely possible. They went into their standard backtracking, explaining how unpredictable weather is, blah, blah, blah. Of course, we all know that weather is unpredictable. But when they spend so much time on each broadcast explaining how advanced their methods are, and how accurate their forecasts are, and how we should heed their warnings, then they have to accept the wrath of the public who depend on them. With all the new technology of doppler radar and satellite photograhs, I still wonder if weather forecasting is any better than it was forty years ago when all they had was a thermometer, a barometer, and a window.
Certainly the meteorologists today are better equipped to tell you what the weather is and was (notice how much time the local stations spend telling you what the weather was today in far-off states, as if you care), but I’d like to see some statistics comparing their accuracy in actual forecasts, especially those worthless 5-day forecasts that change every day. A final note: one network meteorologist, when pressured about the erroneous forecast, made a statement to the effect: What would you rather have, ten feet of ice and snow by surprise or the occasional false-alarm? Just let us know! What a stupid statement. First of all, no one in the contiguous United States has ever gotten ten feet of ice and snow. And second of all, that’s like a mugger asking you, What would you rather have, a punch in the nose or a kick in the knee? Just let me know!