Friday, March 16, 2007

Should We Talk About The Weather?

Scott from Faribault e-mails on global warming and a lukewarm hockey team:

Say it isn't so! Paul Douglas as an expert on global warming? Meteorologists using the computer models to predict the weather in much the same manner as climatologists use them to predict the rising sea levels and the extinction of polar bears? If he can't get this weekend's forecast right, why would I believe his predictions for 2050?

Dave Dahl once said on the radio that they had an 80% chance of getting tomorrow's forecast right. The day after that, a 50/50 chance. Beyond that, they basically have no idea.

Scott from Faribault

BTW, I might have to take back my prediction that the Gophers can beat Holy Cross this year.


SP ADDS: My former least favorite sports writer, Dan Barreiro, redeems himself with this brilliant analysis of the wisdom of Paul Douglas and the snowstorm we had a couple of weeks ago. Excerpt:

Yes, after that first wave didn't materialize here, Daddy choked up, obviously worried that he was going to be left with sleet all over his face. Instead of hanging in there with his original forecast, like the National Weather Service did, he panicked. And he must have thought the imbeciles among us would simply forget what he wrote for the Saturday newspaper, the day after he predicted the Storm of the Century: "A cool six-to-eight inches may accumulate by Monday morning, with more than 10 inches for part of southeastern Minnesota. It won't be as much as previously thought, but it should be plowable, possibly the biggest of the winter."

Got that? A cool six-to-eight MAY accumulate. SHOULD BE be plowable. POSSIBLY the biggest of the winter, which wouldn't take much given we had not had bigger than a four-inch snowfall. And now, on Monday he wants us only to remember that he nailed it in the original forecast?

It's an old sports writer's trick. On Tuesday, you pick the Vikings to lose. On Thursday you pick 'em to win. On Sunday, they lose, and you say you knew it and predicted it all along.

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