Predictions

We are due “heavy snow” for most of the day where I live and “light snow” for most of the day where I work. I have had enough of snow for this year, so am not thrilled by this prospect. The Met Office seem to be quite slow at confirming the snow (can you “confirm” something you are forecasting. I suspect not) this time around and I have heard rumour that they are nervous about forecasting the weather because they have got it wrong several times. I had noticed previously that the weather forecast has often seemed inaccurate, but this did not seem to have put off the weather forecasters from giving the actual forecast.

I can’t decide if this is a sign of humility from the forecasters, perhaps showing that we are less able to predict, let alone control, the elements or that, given their job is to predict the weather with a fair degree of accuracy and reasonably far ahead, it is a failure to do what they are paid to do. I think I would find it somewhat refreshing to hear them say “we simply don’t know”. The ability and willingness of someone to admit when they don’t know is something that I admire. But I do still come back to the rather difficult point: their job is to predict the weather. Somehow I think that if I kept saying that I didn’t know or couldn’t possibly comment as part of my job that in the end someone might think that I was probably not quite doing what I was paid to do. So, I think, for the sake of the forecasters, that I hope for snow, but also that it will soon pass.