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by DontBeADick
4154 days ago
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> More to the point, who cares? Did you forget about the entire city of Philadelphia? 14 inches predicted, < 1 inch actual snowfall. The city is practically a ghost town today thanks to a botched weather forecast. Tons of businesses and schools closed preemptively because they were predicting massive snowfall totals with what seemed like absolute certainty. According to meteorologists here, it wasn't about whether or not we were getting snow, it was about whether we were getting 1 foot or 2 feet. |
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OK, but so what? This is about unpredictability, not over-estimation. If the unpredictability was better conveyed the best case scenario is still everyone preparing like they did for a storm that didn't hit. Worst case is suffering hardships due to underestimating the storm.
I'm a bit further northeast and it's coming down pretty hard outside my window right now. The preemptive cancellations really did avoid a lot of unsafe travel here. We have a bit more familiarity with the unpredictability of snowfall predictions, but it usually manifests as people saying: "It won't be that bad" and getting into trouble the few times it really is that bad.
It didn't hit the cities that aren't used to big snowfall. But those cities house a lot of national media, so now we get to listen their scorn for the next week.