🚀 go-pugleaf

pdb059@ipl.jpl.nasa.gov (Paul Bartholomew) writes:
=In article <lr6k4iw@Unify.Com>, ceb@dbrus.Unify.Com (Caroline E. Bryan) writes:
=> In article <3636@cod.NOSC.MIL> price@cod.NOSC.MIL (James N. Price) writes:
=>>I lived on the E. Coast for a year a while back.  It seemed that
=>>when their weather folks said "70% chance of rain" it meant "it
=>>will be raining 70% of the time."
=>
=> In the DC metro area, where I lived for 20 years, when they say "70% chance
=> of rain" they mean it will 100% definitely rain over about 70% of the area.
=
=I'm sorry, but neither of these interpretations is correct.  When weather
=forecasters say that there is a 70% chance of rain, they mean that under
=these same weather conditions in the past, 70% of the time it rained.
=
=There is no way that a weather forecaster can predict a 100% chance that it
=will be raining over 70% of the metro area, or that it will rain 70% of the
=24 hours in the next day.  Weather forecasting is not that exact a science.

As many people said, this is not a 100% exact science.  But otherwise, what
I heard on a San Jose radio station a few years ago agrees with what
Caroline said - the forecaster's prediction (best estimate) is that 70% of
the area will be rained on.

Apparently, though, this phrase is interpreted differently by different
forecasters.  I have found it interesting learning the different things that
they take it to mean.


"Planet Bog - pools of toxic chemicals | Michael Ludwig
bubble under a choking atmosphere      |
of poisonous gases.  But aside from    | mludwig@bonnie.ics.uci.edu
that, it's not much like Earth."       |
        - Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)  | UCI and I don't agree on anything.