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Standing Up For Meteorologists by Marshall Shepherd and Chuck Doswell
By:
Dr. Marshall Shepherd
, 11:51 PM GMT on Mars 07, 2015
Humorist Joe Queenan has expressed frustration about the forecasts we meteorologists produce (Link).
We appreciate such frustrations, as we have them, too. But his somewhat
tongue-in-cheek description of our nation’s meteorologists only serves
to reinforce a popular stereotype: meteorologists get it wrong at least
as often as they get it right. As Brad Panovich has pointed out in an
American Geophysical Union comment, this is simply incorrect.
(Link).
It’s easy to understand why people would like our forecasts to be perfect. We too would very much like to be perfect, but it’s simply not possible, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with incompetence on the part of meteorologists. In 1963, the great MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz published proof that the physical system that is the atmosphere has strong limits on its inherent predictability. A tiny error in the conditions at the start of the forecast can grow so fast that it ultimately ruins the forecast after several days. We simply don’t know the state of the atmosphere accurately enough to make precise long-range weather forecasts. This means the weather forecast is inherently uncertain. The more detailed you need the forecast to be, the more uncertain such details will be. Our meteorologists aren’t all incompetent – forecasting the weather is difficult and people should be grateful we are able to forecast it at all!
In 2015, we witnessed a winter storm event in which New York City prepared for a storm that actually did materialize but happened to miss the metropolis by enough to make it seem as if the forecast was horribly wrong. The Weather Channel’s WxGeeks show even called in the Administrator of FEMA, the Director of the National Weather Service, and WNBC’s Janice Huff to deconstruct the event. In reality, some of our best models were hinting all along at less certainty in New York City and more certainty in Long Island and central Massachusetts. Can we do a better job conveying the uncertainty to our users? Certainly.
Some of our computer weather forecast models, nine days in advance, indicated that Hurricane Sandy would make a hard left, allowing for considerable lead time. In 2013, we had strong indications three days in advance that central Oklahoma would experience dangerous tornadoes. The real challenge to meteorologists continues to be how such information can be communicated to the public. In fact, many argue that the next great advances in meteorology will come from breakthroughs in expressing weather hazard risk and uncertainty so that the public understands the message we are trying to convey.
Also in 2015, a different winter storm hit Atlanta, Georgia and the “rain/snow” line was off by 20-30 miles. That is an amazing forecast from a meteorological perspective, but the public now has an expectation of pinpoint, backyard forecasts and timing as precise is that of the official “world clock”.
In yet another 2015 winter storm event, the snow was organized into narrow bands, here shown the following morning in a satellite image (Link)
The amount of snow people received was very dependent on whether or not they were in one of those snow bands. Move 30 miles away from the center of a band and there may have been little or no snow at all. Such details are basically impossible to forecast accurately.
We meteorologists seem to have become victims of our own success, as Meteorologist Mike Smith has said:
(Link)
If we say there’s a 60% chance of something happening, that also means a 40% chance it won’t happen. You have to make your own decision about what you need to do, based on your own personal circumstances. If we could be perfect (and you know we aren’t!), that makes your choice easy – unfortunately, that’s just not within our capabilities.
The science of meteorology has indeed made great strides in a relatively short time. There is every reason to believe that progress will continue, and eventually be reflected in forecast improvement. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that no matter how much more we understand about the atmosphere, we can never be perfect. It’s very challenging to know just how much value our weather forecasts have, but everything we know indicates that even our imperfect forecasts can save lives and property to an extent that far exceeds what those forecasts cost to produce.
Dr. Marshall Shepherd is the Director of the University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences Program, Host of Weather Channel's WxGeeks, and past president of the American Meteorological Society.
Dr. Chuck Doswell is the owner of C. Doswell Enterprises, Inc. He is a Senior Scientist with University of Oklahoma, Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and is a former research meteorologist with NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory. Dr. Doswell is a noted storm chaser and one of the most respected meteorologists among scientists, forecasters, and chasers alike.
(Link).
It’s easy to understand why people would like our forecasts to be perfect. We too would very much like to be perfect, but it’s simply not possible, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with incompetence on the part of meteorologists. In 1963, the great MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz published proof that the physical system that is the atmosphere has strong limits on its inherent predictability. A tiny error in the conditions at the start of the forecast can grow so fast that it ultimately ruins the forecast after several days. We simply don’t know the state of the atmosphere accurately enough to make precise long-range weather forecasts. This means the weather forecast is inherently uncertain. The more detailed you need the forecast to be, the more uncertain such details will be. Our meteorologists aren’t all incompetent – forecasting the weather is difficult and people should be grateful we are able to forecast it at all!
In 2015, we witnessed a winter storm event in which New York City prepared for a storm that actually did materialize but happened to miss the metropolis by enough to make it seem as if the forecast was horribly wrong. The Weather Channel’s WxGeeks show even called in the Administrator of FEMA, the Director of the National Weather Service, and WNBC’s Janice Huff to deconstruct the event. In reality, some of our best models were hinting all along at less certainty in New York City and more certainty in Long Island and central Massachusetts. Can we do a better job conveying the uncertainty to our users? Certainly.
Some of our computer weather forecast models, nine days in advance, indicated that Hurricane Sandy would make a hard left, allowing for considerable lead time. In 2013, we had strong indications three days in advance that central Oklahoma would experience dangerous tornadoes. The real challenge to meteorologists continues to be how such information can be communicated to the public. In fact, many argue that the next great advances in meteorology will come from breakthroughs in expressing weather hazard risk and uncertainty so that the public understands the message we are trying to convey.
Also in 2015, a different winter storm hit Atlanta, Georgia and the “rain/snow” line was off by 20-30 miles. That is an amazing forecast from a meteorological perspective, but the public now has an expectation of pinpoint, backyard forecasts and timing as precise is that of the official “world clock”.
In yet another 2015 winter storm event, the snow was organized into narrow bands, here shown the following morning in a satellite image (Link)
The amount of snow people received was very dependent on whether or not they were in one of those snow bands. Move 30 miles away from the center of a band and there may have been little or no snow at all. Such details are basically impossible to forecast accurately.
We meteorologists seem to have become victims of our own success, as Meteorologist Mike Smith has said:
(Link)
If we say there’s a 60% chance of something happening, that also means a 40% chance it won’t happen. You have to make your own decision about what you need to do, based on your own personal circumstances. If we could be perfect (and you know we aren’t!), that makes your choice easy – unfortunately, that’s just not within our capabilities.
The science of meteorology has indeed made great strides in a relatively short time. There is every reason to believe that progress will continue, and eventually be reflected in forecast improvement. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that no matter how much more we understand about the atmosphere, we can never be perfect. It’s very challenging to know just how much value our weather forecasts have, but everything we know indicates that even our imperfect forecasts can save lives and property to an extent that far exceeds what those forecasts cost to produce.
Dr. Marshall Shepherd is the Director of the University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences Program, Host of Weather Channel's WxGeeks, and past president of the American Meteorological Society.
Dr. Chuck Doswell is the owner of C. Doswell Enterprises, Inc. He is a Senior Scientist with University of Oklahoma, Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and is a former research meteorologist with NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory. Dr. Doswell is a noted storm chaser and one of the most respected meteorologists among scientists, forecasters, and chasers alike.
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