"Meteorologist."
Yesterday morning, they were telling us to expect, "A dusting of snow, Possibly an inch -- two, if we're especially unlucky but don't plan on it."
Four to five inches later of sticky, wet snowfall later-- I spent much of yesterday afternoon sweeping snow out of large satellite dishes and on occasion helping to shovel the sidewalks -- and then shoveled walks again after a slip-sliding, 20-to-30 mph drive home.
What else should we expect from a trade with its roots in reading auguries from balls of fire flashing across the sky and falling to the ground? It's a wonder they don't dance about wearing odd body-jewelery, fall to the ground in an ecstatic trance and deliver forecasts in iambic pentameter.
Or do they? Could the claims of "computer models" and sophisticated imaging technology be no more than a ruse, a cover?
Either way, they lie. It might be nicer if they'd have the grace to do so with a bit of theatrics.
"Or do they? Could the claims of "computer models" and sophisticated imaging technology be no more than a ruse, a cover?"
ReplyDeleteThe very first thing to pop into my head when you conflated 'dancing' with computer models' was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9nh6QoUsVU
...I need to stop reading blogs before my first morning kawfy...
Iambic pentameter though- that'd be great. Can we petition to require all weatherfolk to give their prediction in iambic pentameter?
ReplyDeleteWhile I can remember some really bad forecasts (the morning I woke up to find twelve inches of "partly cloudy" on the ground) meteorology is better than climatology. in my opinion. The "butterfly effect" is an extract from the work of a meteorologist who accidentally realized in the Sixties (Lorenz - but not the guy who posited contraction) that his computer program put out the same result if he fed it garbage. Twenty years before the "hockey stick" of climatology.
ReplyDeleteAnybody who gets paid 80 Thou a year for guessing is a job I want.
ReplyDelete