5 ms·

More to the point, who cares? The storm was still pretty bad: this isn't a case of a "bust" forecast. Long Island got hit, as well as much of New England. So t

by acheron 12y ago

More to the point, who cares? The storm was still pretty bad: this isn't a case of a "bust" forecast. Long Island got hit, as well as much of New England. So the line on the map of where the heaviest snow would be was a bit off: the only reason this is "news" at all is because that line happened to affect New York City, and there are a lot of journalists who live there whose view of the world matches that New Yorker cover[1]. If the line had been anywhere else we wouldn't have heard about it at all. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Ave...

VLM 12y ago
Given the continual clickbait alarmist stuff about it being a snow-hurricane (say what?) I'm surprised the hurricane analogy hasn't stuck deeper. Technically hurricane Katrina never hit New Orleans, it hit Slidell. I can assure you no one cares, other than maybe people living in Slidell. The rest of the world feels apathy due to lack of geographic knowledge. Boston, NYC, Long Island, whatever. Similar to the Katrina example, I'm sure the difference between LI and NYC is extremely important to the status seeking locals, but...
CPLX 12y ago
Fair enough, but it's worth noting that line is the difference between empty ocean and twenty million people, threee major airports and the financial capital of the world. It's sort of the definition of a distinction denoting an actual difference.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I think the problem is that people don't really understand nonlinearities in these things. Imagine somebody aims a gun at you and I say, "Watch out, he's going to shoot you!" Then he fires the gun, but it misses you by an inch. You wouldn't say "you idiot, the bullet didn't hit me at all." But the weather equivalent has people thinking forecasters are stupid.
  - RunningWild 12y ago
    Except that (probably) no one predicts where bullets go for a living whereas, for weather reporters (or, more accurately, meteorologists), it's their job. I theorize if we started smashing them in the balls with a tackhammer every time they're wrong, you'd see both a mass exodus out of that field and a marked increase in accuracy.
calinet6 12y ago
Yeah, being in eastern New England, the forecast was pretty spot on. So what if it missed NYC?
- cryptoz 12y ago
  > So what if it missed NYC? There is a very significant economic impact during high-impact weather-related decision making. The city of NY is missing out on a huge amount of money due to the "poor planning" - additionally, so is the rest of the world if flights were cancelled that did not need to be cancelled. Decision making is important in NYC, and providing the best possible information to the decision makers is a critical aspect of modern meteorology. Maybe you don't care that it missed NYC, but Delta cares. Minimum wage workers who couldn't get to work and missed a shift care. The Mayor cares. etc.
  - digikata 12y ago
    But the problem is a problem of planning for uncertainties. Let's say you know its 50/50 chance of a "bad storm" and you have to make a decision to flip the "emergency prep" switch. You now have four possibilities with associated costs. (and that's a drastically simplified analysis) With the right data, you can come to some level of statistically optimized set of decisions, but that won't ever completely eliminate the instances when you turn on emergency actions, but the storm doesn't follow up. It merely minimizes them... Really, if all these private and public entities care about the accuracy of forecasts, maybe they should have made more noise when NOAA programs were being gutted during the budget process and long term decisions were being made about satellite programs... I can't imagine what the handwringing will be if the satellite coverage gaps come to pass. Maybe we'd actually learn that certain investments in common needs actually pay off quite well.
  - calinet6 12y ago
    Accuracy would be great, but I don't believe accuracy existed; wasn't there still a great deal of uncertainty?
  - AznHisoka 12y ago
    Most people don't do any real work anyway (just fake, fluffy work that seem like work). So they didn't get paid. So it didn't get wasted. Economy impact positive, not negative.
DontBeADick 12y ago
> More to the point, who cares? Did you forget about the entire city of Philadelphia? 14 inches predicted, < 1 inch actual snowfall. The city is practically a ghost town today thanks to a botched weather forecast. Tons of businesses and schools closed preemptively because they were predicting massive snowfall totals with what seemed like absolute certainty. According to meteorologists here, it wasn't about whether or not we were getting snow, it was about whether we were getting 1 foot or 2 feet.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  I would rather they close and not get snow than to stay open and put people in danger. Last year in Georgia the weather forecast was so bad and officials so late reacting that thousands were trapped at work and tens of thousands spent hours just driving home.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  Did you forget about the entire city of Philadelphia? 14 inches predicted, < 1 inch actual snowfall. OK, but so what? This is about unpredictability, not over-estimation. If the unpredictability was better conveyed the best case scenario is still everyone preparing like they did for a storm that didn't hit. Worst case is suffering hardships due to underestimating the storm. I'm a bit further northeast and it's coming down pretty hard outside my window right now. The preemptive cancellations really did avoid a lot of unsafe travel here. We have a bit more familiarity with the unpredictability of snowfall predictions, but it usually manifests as people saying: "It won't be that bad" and getting into trouble the few times it really is that bad. It didn't hit the cities that aren't used to big snowfall. But those cities house a lot of national media, so now we get to listen their scorn for the next week.

by acheron 12y ago

VLM 12y ago

Given the continual clickbait alarmist stuff about it being a snow-hurricane (say what?) I'm surprised the hurricane analogy hasn't stuck deeper. Technically hurricane Katrina never hit New Orleans, it hit Slidell. I can assure you no one cares, other than maybe people living in Slidell. The rest of the world feels apathy due to lack of geographic knowledge. Boston, NYC, Long Island, whatever. Similar to the Katrina example, I'm sure the difference between LI and NYC is extremely important to the status seeking locals, but...

CPLX 12y ago

Fair enough, but it's worth noting that line is the difference between empty ocean and twenty million people, threee major airports and the financial capital of the world. It's sort of the definition of a distinction denoting an actual difference.

mikeash 12y ago
I think the problem is that people don't really understand nonlinearities in these things. Imagine somebody aims a gun at you and I say, "Watch out, he's going to shoot you!" Then he fires the gun, but it misses you by an inch. You wouldn't say "you idiot, the bullet didn't hit me at all." But the weather equivalent has people thinking forecasters are stupid.
- RunningWild 12y ago
  Except that (probably) no one predicts where bullets go for a living whereas, for weather reporters (or, more accurately, meteorologists), it's their job. I theorize if we started smashing them in the balls with a tackhammer every time they're wrong, you'd see both a mass exodus out of that field and a marked increase in accuracy.

calinet6 12y ago

Yeah, being in eastern New England, the forecast was pretty spot on. So what if it missed NYC?

cryptoz 12y ago
> So what if it missed NYC? There is a very significant economic impact during high-impact weather-related decision making. The city of NY is missing out on a huge amount of money due to the "poor planning" - additionally, so is the rest of the world if flights were cancelled that did not need to be cancelled. Decision making is important in NYC, and providing the best possible information to the decision makers is a critical aspect of modern meteorology. Maybe you don't care that it missed NYC, but Delta cares. Minimum wage workers who couldn't get to work and missed a shift care. The Mayor cares. etc.
- digikata 12y ago
  But the problem is a problem of planning for uncertainties. Let's say you know its 50/50 chance of a "bad storm" and you have to make a decision to flip the "emergency prep" switch. You now have four possibilities with associated costs. (and that's a drastically simplified analysis) With the right data, you can come to some level of statistically optimized set of decisions, but that won't ever completely eliminate the instances when you turn on emergency actions, but the storm doesn't follow up. It merely minimizes them... Really, if all these private and public entities care about the accuracy of forecasts, maybe they should have made more noise when NOAA programs were being gutted during the budget process and long term decisions were being made about satellite programs... I can't imagine what the handwringing will be if the satellite coverage gaps come to pass. Maybe we'd actually learn that certain investments in common needs actually pay off quite well.
- calinet6 12y ago
  Accuracy would be great, but I don't believe accuracy existed; wasn't there still a great deal of uncertainty?
- AznHisoka 12y ago
  Most people don't do any real work anyway (just fake, fluffy work that seem like work). So they didn't get paid. So it didn't get wasted. Economy impact positive, not negative.

DontBeADick 12y ago

> More to the point, who cares? Did you forget about the entire city of Philadelphia? 14 inches predicted, < 1 inch actual snowfall. The city is practically a ghost town today thanks to a botched weather forecast. Tons of businesses and schools closed preemptively because they were predicting massive snowfall totals with what seemed like absolute certainty. According to meteorologists here, it wasn't about whether or not we were getting snow, it was about whether we were getting 1 foot or 2 feet.

Shivetya 12y ago
I would rather they close and not get snow than to stay open and put people in danger. Last year in Georgia the weather forecast was so bad and officials so late reacting that thousands were trapped at work and tens of thousands spent hours just driving home.
forgottenpass 12y ago
Did you forget about the entire city of Philadelphia? 14 inches predicted, < 1 inch actual snowfall. OK, but so what? This is about unpredictability, not over-estimation. If the unpredictability was better conveyed the best case scenario is still everyone preparing like they did for a storm that didn't hit. Worst case is suffering hardships due to underestimating the storm. I'm a bit further northeast and it's coming down pretty hard outside my window right now. The preemptive cancellations really did avoid a lot of unsafe travel here. We have a bit more familiarity with the unpredictability of snowfall predictions, but it usually manifests as people saying: "It won't be that bad" and getting into trouble the few times it really is that bad. It didn't hit the cities that aren't used to big snowfall. But those cities house a lot of national media, so now we get to listen their scorn for the next week.