National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster Jim Cisco, who coined the nickname Frankenstorm, said: "We don't have many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting."
Ok, not to belittle the weather event forming up in the Atlantic, along with the cold front that sweeping through the Midwest, but … so what? We are going to have a bad storm.
Alright, my point is exactly what NOAA forcecaster Jim Cisco said: We mere 21st century humans don’t have all that many precedents upon which to base our forecasts. Like that is a no-brainer.
Hello, we peoples down here on this little planet have been keeping fairly accurate records for maybe 100 years, and have actual satellite data (which is a step up from ground records) for maybe 30 years … on a planet that is 4 billion years old. That is not a wealth of data to choose from when you look at it.
We can infer a lot from what we can get from ice core samples from glaciers and the Polar Regions. We can estimate a lot from analyzing geological samples from years past, but real actual hard data to plug into our relatively recent inventions called digital computers is pretty doggone hard to come by.
So, before you go jumping off any cliffs because we are going to get a bad storm, don’t. The weather guys and other folks mean well, but they really are talking just possibilities and probabilities. What they want you to do is to use your common sense and take sensible precautions. In other words, don’t do something stupid and be prepared for changing circumstances.
Now is not the time to run around like a chicken with your head cut off and expecting the end of the world to happen. It ain’t … at least until Dec. 21, when we have it on good authority that all sorts of cultural catastrophes are going to happen … or then again maybe not.
The reality of the situation is that if we get a bad storm, it will be a bad storm. Lots of people will be without power and generally very inconvenienced. How we all react to that will be of more importance than what the weather does or does not do.
In most cases, unless you do something stupid or silly, you will survive and will have yet another tale to tell somebody who wasn’t there.
No comments:
Post a Comment