Do you trust your weatherman?

[quicky06]

Another Stl person here.

I trust a post taco bell fart more than I trust the weather predictions.

[Scrapper]

Even though I have 2 personal weather stations at my B&S home I still rely on a weather rock.

Instructions for "analyzing" weather with the weather stone.

• If the rock is wet, it's raining.
• If the rock is swinging, the wind is blowing.
• If the rock casts a shadow, the sun is shining.
• If the rock does not cast a shadow and is not wet, the sky is cloudy.
• If the rock is difficult to see, it is foggy.
• If the rock is white, it is snowing.
• If the rock is coated with ice, there is a frost.
• If the ice is thick, it's a heavy frost.
• If the rock is bouncing, there is an earthquake.
• If the rock is under water, there is a flood.
• If the rock is cold, it is cold.
• If the rock is really warm, it is hot.
• If the rock is bright and warm, it is sunny.
• If the rock is missing, there was a tornado.
• If the rock is wet and swinging violently, there is a hurricane.
• If the rock can be felt but not seen, it is night time.
• If the rock has white splats on it, watch out for birds.
• If the string is on fire then there is a bush fire.

Please do not disturb the weather rock, it is a finely tuned instrument!

[Wobbles]

Originally Posted by quicky06

Another Stl person here.

I trust a post taco bell fart more than I trust the weather predictions.

I used to trust those too, until I started to have a few that I could not trust.

[BandJCarm]

Originally Posted by Wobbles

I used to trust those too, until I started to have a few that I could not trust.

The three quotes from Bucket List!

I have done the tracking thing mentioned above. Write down the 7 or 10 day forecast. Each day 'slide' another one under it. Then one column is the individual days of a specific day. The changes daily are almost staggering.

The only time, at least in the South, when they get it fairly right is middle of summer. It's hot and there's a 20% chance of a stray thunderstorm. Every day. Winter, they can't get. Winter in the north is easier to predict than winter in the mid-south. Course, Florida in the winter is sorta like everywhere else in the south in the summer.

[glsimms]

Originally Posted by Wobbles

I used to trust those too, until I started to have a few that I could not trust.

Same here, except the farts turned in to "sharts". I'll let you figure out what those are.....

[18CrewDually]

No. Don't even watch them. I'll glimpse at my weather app and "read" the RADAR myself and predict the weather.

[Go UK]

Once a weather forecaster always a weather forecaster. They never seem to change jobs or move on to bigger and better things.

[18CrewDually]

Originally Posted by Go UK

Once a weather forecaster always a weather forecaster. They never seem to change jobs or move on to bigger and better things.

Bigger & better things? I thought that is the highest level to be reached in the field.
Some of the other positions such as clairvoyant, fortune teller, harbinger, palmist, prophet, prophetess, psychic, seer, sibyl, soothsayer, and visionary are just stepping stone positions to the almighty weather forcaster.

[mcnabbwr]

Originally Posted by 05CrewDually

Bigger & better things? I thought that is the highest level to be reached in the field.
Some of the other positions such as clairvoyant, fortune teller, harbinger, palmist, prophet, prophetess, psychic, seer, sibyl, soothsayer, and visionary are just stepping stone positions to the almighty weather forcaster.

Amen

[HikerBob]

We have a RadioShack weather radio that's tunable to all the Weather Bureau stations in the country. I printed out the frequencies from their website and keep it in the trailer. It has proved to be very handy. I think the talking heads all use the Weather Bureau for their information and dress it up for TV.

[salwolfe]

Intellicast dot com:
Has always helped out. I did notice about 20 years ago they quit building weather station offices with windows.

[DouglasReid]

in a word, NO!

He is the only person I know that can be wrong 80% of the time and still keep a job!

[EdnKat]

Originally Posted by Wobbles

Recently within the last three weeks in the STL area there have been major ice storm predictions. None of which have happened.

I would be interested in learning for travel purposes which stations I should use for a goto weather channel while traveling in your area. Who do you trust over others in your area?

As near as I can figure it is all a crap shoot. The weather people are wrong so much that there is no way a station can pay a living wage to the five or six people that they keep on staff. I am left wondering, that, The weather people must feed their families with an arrangement with the local grocery stores based on how many scares they announce. How many times have you bought the ingredients for French Toast?

Weather guys/gals, politicians, dentists, their pay goes on, and on, and on......

[Onecuff]

I think the weather channel and food channel are for entertainment purposes only!

[DrLewie]

As a former TV news producer I think I can add some insight to this issue. Part of my 25 years in the business I worked closely with a station's "meteorologist". BTW, the AMS seal some TV weather folks show indicates they've completed a brief course by the American Meteorology Association. It doesn't mean they have advanced degrees in meteorology.

All weather data used by TV and other weatherpersons come from the same source... the National Weather Service. Outfits like Accuweather and many TV weather folks attempt to bring local knowledge into their forecasts, but they are all using the same data. The 7 day, and sometimes a 10 day forecast is a joke. It started because some weathercaster somewhere thought it would make his/her forecast seem better than the competition's. Other stations saw it and said "hey if they can do it, we can too." So it was, and still is, all about marketing. Those of us in the weather departments fought management on this because we knew a 7 day+ weather forecast is like predicting what the stock market will do in 7+ days. And we all know how accurate that is. Management said "but everyone else is doing it, so we have to also."

Weather forecasting has gradually improved over the years, mainly due to the computer models that try to record every one of the myriad details regarding atmospheric conditions in the past and comparing them with conditions today. Again, the stock market analogy comes to mind. The accuracy of a 48 hour forecast (weather, not stocks) has improved a lot. Go beyond 48 hours, not so much.

Bottom line, you can do it yourself by evaluating all the data, you can pick a favorite TV weatherman for your forecast, or you can go with whatever the NWS is predicting, and in the long run you'll find that over time none will be more accurate than any other.

Or you can use the Farmer's Almanac which predicts weather up to a year in the future. If you think that has a thread of credibility, let me know because I have a lightly used trailer tire I'd like to sell you.

[JanFMiller]

I've missed a lot of events due to bogus foreguesses.
Now if it's not too bad to go... I just go... As others have pointed out, I have a better sense of what's going to happen in the next few hours than the 'meteorologists' seem to have. They just look at 'what the models say' these days... I just go, and if the weather turns foul, I deal with it. Like I say about riding my motorcycle. There is no such thing as bad weather; just wrong clothes...
I use the WeatherBug app. It is helpful... but accurate... no.. none of them are anymore..

[RitaB]

One of the weathermen here in NE PA will tell you that this projection said this, another said that and others say another. So you just pick one you like. LOL A couple weeks ago they forecast we would get a coating to 3 in, well we got 5 1/2 inches. The forecasts are just educated guesses.

[Iwritecode]

I'm curious what everyone defines as "wrong". Considering they usually admit that it's an inexact science and they almost always predict a range of weather.

If one guy says we are going to get 3 - 6 inches and another says 4-7 and we end up getting 5.7, were either of them "wrong"?

In my experience it's pretty rare for them to completely whiff on their predictions.

[BandJCarm]

Originally Posted by Iwritecode

I'm curious what everyone defines as "wrong". Considering they usually admit that it's an inexact science and they almost always predict a range of weather.

If one guy says we are going to get 3 - 6 inches and another says 4-7 and we end up getting 5.7, were either of them "wrong"?

In my experience it's pretty rare for them to completely whiff on their predictions.

It is?

Where do you live??

[quicky06]

Originally Posted by Iwritecode

I'm curious what everyone defines as "wrong". Considering they usually admit that it's an inexact science and they almost always predict a range of weather.

If one guy says we are going to get 3 - 6 inches and another says 4-7 and we end up getting 5.7, were either of them "wrong"?

In my experience it's pretty rare for them to completely whiff on their predictions.

The original poster is commenting on Stl weather which in the past 4 Weeks has predicted 3 ice storms (over an inch of accumulation) folllwed by snow ranging from a half inch to 5”.

In reality it has drizzled 1 weekend and been windy the other two.