Summer forecast: heat, humidity, rain
It’s hardly surprising news that the long‑term weather forecast for this summer involves heat, humidity and thunderstorms. (Same CP story in French and English.)
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Joey 10:43 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
An enterprising journalism student ought to compare the predicitons with reality for the least 10 years and see if these stories are ever close to the mark. Also, interesting that the meterologists seem not to have really internalized that climate change is accelerating and ‘normal’ weather much more quickly than before. If 10 out of the last 10 years have been ‘above average,’ it’s time to redefine ‘average.’
Blork 11:03 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
Isn’t that a bit like the old saw “Forecast for today: light. Forecast for tonight: dark.”
PatrickC 12:13 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
I agree with Joey about the changing averages. It’s never clear to me what time-span is being used. In terms of predictions, where I am (Los Angeles), I tracked the high temp over one summer, and in most cases the actual high was higher than the predicted one (though often within the margin of error obscured by the fake precision of a specific degree), and in particular the “cooling trend” after a heat wave came later and was less pronounced than predicted. As with the dreaded “storm watch,” there’s a lot of hype in weather predictions, especially on TV. But when have you ever heard a weather forecast begin, “well, we were wrong about yesterday…”?
SMD 13:07 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
There is a meteorological convention for averages (known as Climate Normals): averages are over a thirty-year period, starting with the year 1901. This means that in 2022 we are comparing our weather data to the average weather over the 1991-2020 period. The periods are updated every decade, so in 2032 we will be comparing to average weather from 2001-2030.
Joey 15:17 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
@SMD the assumption that climate-change effects will occur at the same pace as previous meterological trends reveals a misunderstanding of what climate change is… or to put it another way, like the children of Lake Wobegon, every year from now on will be above average.
SMD 16:33 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
Yup! I wonder if there is a push among meteorologists to establish new averages more frequently, like every five years. It is going to get harder and harder to keep up.
thomas 20:36 on 2022-05-31 Permalink
The average seems to be changing fairly slowly and is not really the salient metric. Isn’t the phenomena we observe and ensuing unpredictability because the variance is increasing?