There will be blowing and drifting on the roads tomorrow due to very strong northwest winds.
***Official 2025 Weather Thread***
- Thread starter wxman1
- Start date
Well, it is Valentine’s Day. Good for you.
Lol, are we even going to get anything in Polk County today? Looks like they were completely wrong 2 days in a row now.
Completely wrong? Every forecast talked about how unknown the track was going to be. Maybe you should do more than look at pictures.
What pictures? I watch the local news. They showed "whiteout, snow squall, blizzard conditions" yesterday from 1-4. Then they predicted an extra 6-7 inches for today. This
Science and logic are difficult concepts for some people to grasp
Story County had a snow squall during that time frame yesterday and it's been snowing here all morning.
There was no forecast of 6-7 inches for sure in a certain spot. Every forecast talked about the uncertainty.
Was the forecast exactly right? No, it never is. Was it completely wrong like you said. Absolutely not.
That's weird becuase they just completely nailed the track and amount of the storm on Wednesday that all the schools cancelled for.
Every single location in the forecast area was within their snowfall forecast range? Not a single miss?
Wednesday was easier to predict and they got more right.
They called for like nothing today so I’d say they are going to be exactly right. School would have been closed today though cause we just close at the thought of snow now days.
You say this, but it is usually the "science" that overhypes and over forecast nearly every event. News meteorologists and official sources both do this. It's human nature in that they will get blow back if things are worse than forecast, just minor whining when things are better. They should emphasize the most likely, a range, and the percentage chance of the worst case. Forget anything greater than 24hrs out, it is just useful for general planning. I've needed to interpret weather for my occupation more than 30 years.
Probability is something people clearly don’t understand.
Most people don't understand statistics in general. Where I will gripe against the weather forecasting community is their amalgamation of probability statistics and how it's presented to the general population.
(1) If the forecaster was 80% certain that rain would develop but only expected to cover 50% of
the forecast area, then the forecast would read "a 40% chance of rain" for any given location.
(2) If the forecaster expected a widespread area of precipitation with 100% coverage to
approach, but he/she was only 40% certain that it would reach the forecast area, this would, as
well, result in a "40% chance of rain" at any given location in the forecast area.
Most people can't interpret (1) as presented and why the common stereotype that the meteorologists are guessing exists,
The storm tracked further north than what they predicted, and even last night they were still unsure of its exact track. So we got an inch or two in Ames as opposed to 5 or 6. Schools cancel because when they don't people are going to call and complain, but then call and complain when they do. People just want to ***** anymore, no matter what you do.
On a personal note, got my snow blower back yesterday, and it worked perfectly blowing off the little snow we got yesterday and this morning.
