The radio announcer said there was a thirty percent chance of rain for today and a fifty percent chance of rain for tomorrow. Now I know she was merely reading information she’d been given, but it made me wonder who is in charge of these statistics? And how exactly is the chance of rain calculated? And what makes that chance thirty percent instead of twenty-seven percent? Or fifty instead of forty-three and a half percent?
None of these statistics means that rain is imminent; in fact, it’s just as correct to say there is a seventy percent chance that it won’t rain today. So why all the math? Is it that weather announcers have to fill air time or that they want to be taken more seriously?
Rain is imminent when you actually see heavy, grey clouds on your horizon and moving in your direction. Until then, any chance of rain is hypothetical at best, even if your favorite weathercaster predicts it. We all know about that person’s accuracy.
Of course, if you’re in charge of the family’s annual picnic or an outdoor wedding reception, it’s always wise to have a Plan B in case of rain. But I don’t believe anyone waits until the day of actual event, listens to a forecaster, and then makes the plan on the spur of the moment based on some mysteriously arrived-at percentage.
I would love to know the formula for those percentages. I believe those who do predict weather for a living must have some training in reading various natural indicators of climate. They don’t just make up this stuff. Or could there be a fifty percent chance that they do?
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