Weather Information That is Sometimes Misunderstood:
Everyone has heard the long-standing joke “I wish I got paid for only being right half the time” that meteorologists hear way too often. Part of the reason this joke/ phrase is still so commonly used is due to the way the pubic receives their weather information. Let us clarify that statement. “The public” refers to anyone who looks at a forecast to get an idea as to how the day might pan out weather-wise. People look at the weather because they are impacted by weather every single day of the year. The other part of that statement we want to clarify is how people receive their weather information. There are SO many ways for people to get info about the weather. You could look at the local/national newspaper, the local/national news, your favorite free/paid app, a paid weather subscription, the National Weather Service, local radio, your favorite website, social media, or a family member/ friend/ co-worker, just to name a few. That is a ton of different ways to receive information about how the weather will be today. By no means are we saying that it is a bad thing that there are so many ways to get information, but we want to explain why this can cause misunderstandings of what the weather could be like in your backyard.
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE SAME SITUATION
The first thing to note is that weather is very ambiguous. There is not a concrete yes/no answer with weather. The atmosphere is so fluid and has so many moving parts that even today’s technology can have trouble forecasting big storms even 12 hours out. With that ambiguity comes interpretation. Of all the ways to get weather info mentioned above, each one of them will interpret a situation differently. Look at the image below, would you classify this as scattered rain, light rain, widespread rain, or intermittent rain? What’s the right answer? There isn’t one. Your favorite AM radio voice might classify this as “light, widespread rain moving through the area”, while your local TV station might say this is “heavier pockets of scattered rain”. As you hear this information, it is easy to say to yourself “how are these two people looking at the same thing and saying two different things? Weather people don’t know what they are talking about.” It’s not that meteorologists don’t know what they are saying, it’s that everyone has a different interpretation of the same scenario:
BACKYARD FORECASTS DO NOT EXIST
The next thing to discuss is location. Weather apps have made people believe that weather forecasts can be “backyard specific”. Sure, we can time storms out as they are happening for certain locations, but it IMPOSSIBLE to say that 123 Main Street will receive 0.24 inches of rain today but 789 Smith Way will get closer to 0.89 inches. This technology will never exist as the atmosphere is too complex and backyards are too small to get precision like that. When looking at a weather app or computer model shown on TV, people have this perception that the forecast is specific to their backyard, office building, or their child’s baseball game and that weather can be pinpointed to their EXACT location hours in advance. Look at the example below:
Suppose you hear from your local TV station that there are going to be some light scattered showers this morning. If this is what radar looks like that morning and you live in Waverly, the forecast panned out because you are seeing exactly what was forecasted. If you live just S of Charles City, you are upset because your backyard is seeing much more than a light rain. If you live in Waterloo, you are bashing the local meteorologist because you have n0 rain. This is a great example of how forecasts cannot be specific to your location because there is absolutely no way to know that this exact scenario is going to play out hours in advance when we are talking about a difference of only a few miles between locations. Forecasts are not made for backyards, but rather for areas. With that said, there is certainly a difference in accuracy regarding how the information is relayed and how you get up to date information. Your favorite app might tell you “scattered AM showers” which doesn’t clarify where or exactly when, to where a private weather provider can give you more details about potential timing, amounts, and track precipitation for you in real time.
WEATHER ICONS
The next topic we want to touch on are weather icons. Do these three icons below all mean the same to you? We think the majority of people would say yes, “partly sunny/ mostly cloudy with a chance of storms”. While that’s fair to say, what does that actually mean? Each of these icons were for the same city and came with a different description. The first said “scattered showers and storms during the day”. The second said “isolated evening thunderstorms”. The third said “widely scattered storms in the PM hours”. While these all generally mean the same thing, there is a big difference between scattered storms during the entire day and isolated evening thunderstorms:
Everyone wants their information as fast as possible in today’s society, so most people just glance at the icon and see a lightning bolt for today, assuming that they are going to get precip. At the end of the day when their backyard is dry because they missed out on the rain, people get mad because “it didn’t storm like it was supposed to”. Always pay attention to the description attached to any weather icon because odds are that a lightning bolt doesn’t mean it’s going to storm all day and a snowflake doesn’t always mean snow the entire day.
FORECASTS CHANGE!
Another question we often hear is “what happened to the nice weekend?!?!”. This question usually comes on a Tuesday when we have a 30% chance of rain for the upcoming weekend, just one day after we had partly sunny conditions. Another concept that people often don’t fully grasp is that weather changes! Whether this is a storm looking more/less intense, a front coming in faster/slower than originally thought, or data just looking different than before, forecasts are going to change. This is not some cover-up for a meteorologist being “wrong” at first, but it is often just a tweak from initial thoughts as to why a forecast may change from day to day. Usually with a forecast change the original idea will still be there, there’s just a shift in time or a change in intensity. With such a complex atmosphere, all it takes is one or two small ingredients to slightly differ for a forecast to change so rapidly.
PRECIPITATION CHANCES
We also want to touch on percentage of precip chances. We have heard so many people say “There was a 60% chance of rain today, why didn’t I see a drop of precip?” There is often a misconception that if the chance for precip is above 50%, then it is GOING to rain and if it is below 50% then it WILL NOT rain. This is far from how precip chances work. While some meteorologists have different views on percentages, the most common way to generate a percentage is – confidence of precip multiplied by the coverage for the area forecasted for. Suppose we are making a precip percentage for the entire state of IL and had to come up with one percentage and weren’t allowed to describe the percentage. For the image below, we would put that at 20% precip. While we our pretty confident that precip will fall in IL, it is only happening in a very small portion of our forecast area:
Now, let’s say we are making a forecast just for NW IN. This precip would be closer to 70 or 80%. Our confidence that precip falls is still the same, but our area is now smaller and the majority of the area looks to get precip:
Now we are making a forecast for Southern IL. While this computer model looks like rain and chances should be high for precip, other models keep this area totally dry and sunny. This would certainly lower our precip chances. While it looks like this precip chance could be around 80%, we would keep this closer to 60% due to the uncertainty of data. Even though the majority of the area could see precip, we are not confident in saying that it is likely:
FORECAST “BUSTS”
There are plenty of forecasts that bust over the course of a year. This is not to say that every weather source is “wrong” an equal amount of times, however every meteorologist makes incorrect predictions (including us). Just like a referee missing a call or a financial advisor giving inaccurate advice, forecasts will always have the potential to not be 100% correct. Another misconception is that meteorologists “just guess”. Again, we can’t speak for other meteorologists, but we do not just guess on forecasts. There are plenty of hours spent looking over data to make the best, most informed predictions about what will happen in the future. There is a lot more that goes on when making a forecast besides looking at what 1 or 2 models have and throwing that on a fancy graphic. We are not trying to defend ourselves or make it seem like we are never wrong, but we want to make it clear that we do everything we can to provide the most accurate data to clients. There are some days where we have complete confidence in a forecast, and there are other days where we don’t have a ton of confidence even in the hours leading up to a storm. As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, weather is not yes or no.
So, next time your app/ radio/ favorite TV meteorologist/ newspaper /weather subscription says that there are scattered storms in the afternoon, do not assume that they are 100% wrong just because you did not receive a drop of rain. With this said, meteorologists do have their fair share of forecasts that bust (including us). It has always happened, it always will happen. Why? Because we simply have no control over it. We are doing everything we can to look at data and provide the most accurate and up to date information, but at the end of the day mother nature is going to do exactly what she wants, regardless of what anyone says. After all, we are trying to predict the future often days in advance.