Part Of The Business

Many years when I first started in Birmingham at Channel 13 in the late 1970s, I was invited to speak to a local Rotary Club. I was all of 23 years old, and quite frankly, was scared to death. After my talk (I have no recollection of what I said), an older gentleman came up to me and said, “There are only two kinds of people that forecast the weather in Alabama. Fools, and strangers. So, which one are you?”. Since I was born in Alabama and at the time had lived here all my life, it was clear that I fell into the “fool” category. The man was wise.

For some of you, today’s forecast for 1 to 2 inches of snow for areas along and about 60 miles south of I-20 was simply rotten. To the north, where we forecast a dusting to 1 inch, the forecast was perfect. The e-mail inbox has been full of both hate mail, and mail praising the forecast. It is a very odd thing to sit in my chair sometimes.

Needless to say, we now have to identify that warm layer in the 925 mb range in future events and not make the same mistake. This “ain’t my first rodeo”; we have wrong before, and we will be wrong again. Anyone that has heard me speak in recent years has heard me say one of the greatest things missing in our science is humility; those who say “the science is settled” will be brought down to their knees one day soon. There is so much we don’t know. But, there is adequate skill level in forecasting winter weather events a few days in advance, it is just a very complex chore.

So, we move on… thanks to everybody for both the positive and the negative comments. You can only get better by constructive criticism.

For those that missed the snow today, see what your friends to the north enjoyed….

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