Whither the Weather?
A funny piece in the Globe and Mail: weather forecasts for Canada have been completely wrong all summer.
With temperature, there are really only three predictions: it will be normal, above normal, or below normal. Absolutely random guessing will make you correct one-third of the time. The record of Canada's government meteorologists this summer? Probably in the range of 37% to 40%.
"That means Canadians got nearly as much accurate weather information this summer as they would have had without any forecast at all."
"'Never have we been so wrong for so long in so many parts of the country,' said David Phillips, the senior climatologist at Environment Canada." Thanks Dave. Your candour is refreshing.
"And that's just for the temperature. What about precipitation? 'It's hopeless,' Mr. Verret said. 'There, we have no skill at all.'"
Needless to say, a good deal of public money is spent on this more or less pointless activity.
Still, my very favourite part is this.
"'Luckily, Canadians are very forgiving,' he said. 'They'll ask you what went wrong with the forecast, and their next question will be, "What's the winter going to be like?"'"
No matter how many times the sages are wrong, no matter how disastrous the consequences, Canadians still turn for help to ... the same sages. Is there a parable here about the history of journalism? punditry? the blogosphere? Religion?
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