Meteorologist 1, golbologist 0

A couple of weeks ago, I claimed that the extreme 14-day weather forecast was the greatest racket in all of science. Now, about 14 days later, the results are in. I was wrong. The weatherman was right. Almost 100% right.


The yellow line indicates the forecast; red indicates reported conditions. The only errors with the Nov 11-24 forecast were minor. Its stingy scattering of the promise of sunshine wasn't stingy enough. Even the stingiest of scatter never actually happened - during these past weeks or at all this entire autumn. Can't shoot the messenger for that.

Even when I finally had the past weather results in my front me, I was sure the 14-day prediction was going to be incorrect. So maybe it's my long-term memory that's faulty, not the long-range forecast. Maybe I'm a fairweather amnesiac. This fall, I can't remember the last time nice weather has been predicted and it actually panned out. Maybe I could plot out my condition on a graph...


Or maybe I couldn't. Yet again the line between science and fun budges not.


It is full-fledged winter here now, still a full month from the winter solstice, the season's actual start. Only three days away is a reliable forecast of a large warm front, bringing rain and rising temperatures. Perhaps that means the tornado slated for the 20th (or is that the 21st?) won't be one of those snowy whacked-out jobs from The Wiz.