Reply #11: In defense of weather forecasters, [View All]

there's a certain amount of unavoidable imprecision, since there's never any way of knowing EXACTLY what will happen or what's going on in the upper atmosphere.

We had an ice-storm here in the Kansas City area the first week of the month, and the forecasters had it exactly right. It was truly astonishing, because weather forecasting here is less accurate than other places I've lived because of the exact geography and the way weather masses tend to meet right here.

To get a respect for how hard it is, and to appreciate how useful a forecast of "from 4 to 18 inches of snow" actually is, read Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson or The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. The first is about the hurricane that nearly destroyed Galveston, Texas in 1900, the second about a blizzard that struck the upper Midwest on January 12, 1888. In both cases there was little or no warning of what was to happen, and in both cases many died.

But I do hope the forecasts of a couple of inches of snow for DC are quite off, and they get some kind of record-setting amount and the only people who have the stamina to brave the elements are the protesters. Keep warm y'all!