I HATE weather forecasters....

[Brian]

After an incredibly wet summer the valve was turned off in early September and we've been in a serious late summer drought. Last week I started seeing rain predicted for the middle of this week and when I checked the weather forecast Friday and it showed a 90% chance of rain for next Wednesday with 1.5" predicted. On Saturday morning it was 91% with 2.3" predicted. Because of the drought conditions here I haven't sprayed my plots and wasn't planning to for another week or two but no problem.... I dropped what I was doing and got my plots in Sunday. I've been a convert to throw and mow for several years but since what was supposed to be my thatch layer was thin and with the lack of spraying I pulled the disc's out for the first time in years and made a single pass after mowing. Everything came out nice and ready for the rain and I was quite pleased with myself!

Well, this morning the chance of rain for Wednesday has increased to a whopping 96%.... with 0.32" predicted, which is probably just enough rain for germination going so everything can die of thirst. Now I'm wishing I had stuck to my original plan to wait until the last weekend of October to plant.

There's no point to this post.... I just needed to vent!

 

[KSQ2]

As someone who hasn’t had real rain since June 7th, I feel your pain and then some. My feelings toward meteorologists mirror yours, maybe not quite hatred, but I do feel they are useless.

 

[catscratch]

I don't hate them. I've got a system that has been pretty accurate:

Figure 10 day forecast is not worth looking at.

5 days out I might look.

If chances go up as we get closer I might get excited.

If chances go down as we get closer it's not going to rain.

 

[KSQ2]

I don't hate them. I've got a system that has been pretty accurate:

Figure 10 day forecast is not worth looking at.

5 days out I might look.

If chances go up as we get closer I might get excited.

If chances go down as we get closer it's not going to rain.

According to your formula, not sure what to do with tomorrow. We went from chance of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, to only Tuesday, BUT the chance on Tuesday went up some. So???

 

[catscratch]

According to your formula, not sure what to do with tomorrow. We went from chance of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, to only Tuesday, BUT the chance on Tuesday went up some. So???

Now that chances have gone up I look at what the actual percentage is. It matters if it jumped from 20% to 30%, vs 60% to 70%. I put little faith in less than 60% chances this time of year. In the spring I might think differently.

I'm currently looking at a hourly that has a 89% chance of light rain at 8:00pm tonight. Yesterday's prediction for today was 37%. That's a big jump. Plus we have a home football game tonight that this would make miserable for old spectators. For that alone I increase the percentage another 5%. Plus my wife broke her hand this weekend and I really want to go watch this football game but she isn't likely to want to stand in the rain so I "should" go home and help her. For that I increase the percentage 20%. Add it all up and there's 114% chance of rain tonight. Which anytime it goes over 90% is a hearbreaker in the making so I automatically drop it 60%. That still leaves me a 54% chance of rain. So all-in-all my method has us at a 50/50 chance of rain tonight. With it being fall revert back to line one.

 

[KSQ2]

Now that chances have gone up I look at what the actual percentage is. It matters if it jumped from 20% to 30%, vs 60% to 70%. I put little faith in less than 60% chances this time of year. In the spring I might think differently.

I'm currently looking at a hourly that has a 89% chance of light rain at 8:00pm tonight. Yesterday's prediction for today was 37%. That's a big jump. Plus we have a home football game tonight that this would make miserable for old spectators. For that alone I increase the percentage another 5%. Plus my wife broke her hand this weekend and I really want to go watch this football game but she isn't likely to want to stand in the rain so I "should" go home and help her. For that I increase the percentage 20%. Add it all up and there's 114% chance of rain tonight. Which anytime it goes over 90% is a hearbreaker in the making so I automatically drop it 60%. That still leaves me a 54% chance of rain. So all-in-all my method has us at a 50/50 chance of rain tonight. With it being fall revert back to line one.

Just might be the best post on this forsaken thread!!

Lol, got mixed up on my threads, thought this was the drought thread.

 

[OkieKubota]

When I went to bed last night at 10:30 we had 100% chance of rain at 1:00 am - 5:00 am. Yep, you guessed it, woke up to not a single drop and no more chances until a 30% on Sunday.

 

[KSQ2]

When I went to bed last night at 10:30 we had 100% chance of rain at 1:00 am - 5:00 am. Yep, you guessed it, woke up to not a single drop and no more chances until a 30% on Sunday.

MO is absolutely blanketed with green, how in the world did you not get a drop Okie?

 

[OkieKubota]

MO is absolutely blanketed with green, how in the world did you not get a drop Okie?

Well I am in Oklahoma so perhaps that has something to do with it...
And I see now our 30% for Sunday is gone

 

[M. R. Byrd]

i am up to 7" for the year. Nothing promising for the near future.

 

[KSQ2]

i am up to 7" for the year. Nothing promising for the near future.

 

[Brian]

i am up to 7" for the year. Nothing promising for the near future.

Ouch - now I'm embarrassed griping about the lack of rain since the first of September... I was at 46" of rain for the year at that point!

 

[Mennoniteman]

i am up to 7" for the year. Nothing promising for the near future.

I really feel for you people west of the Mississippi. I don't know what to say other than that drought is a terrible weather event that doesn't get the big news headlines that hurricanes do, but droughts destroy people's livelihoods just the same as an earthquake or storm.
One idea that I have for a partial solution is that if we would spend the billions of dollars that are spent on war every year managing water, building reservoirs and desalination systems, installing more irrigation systems, and planting trees in the arid regions of the world there would be a lot less drought conditions.
Weather systems move long distances with the prevailing wind, and if it's already dry from where the wind is coming from, it won't be bringing any extra moisture along. Forests are tremendous reservoirs of moisture that draw lots of rainfall, which then continuously evaporates and continues to move along with wherever the prevailing wind is headed to. My uncle lives in eastern Washington state, which is a very dry region, but he says that when the first settlers arrived there in the Grand Coulee area there were trees growing on the south side of the Columbia river, and those early settlers grew dryland corn with good success. Now, after all the trees have been cut there is no longer enough rain to grow dryland crops, which is a good example of the necessity of trees in any given region.
Right now at this very moment on windy.com there is a strong prevailing wind blowing straight out of eastern Montana, moving directly southeast into Kansas, but since eastern Montana has no trees and no moisture, and neither does Wyoming or western Nebraska, there's probably no moisture in this particular wind stream.
I'm not a treehugger type of person that doesn't want to see any trees cut. I like to see trees managed and used as a natural resource, and then replanted when they are cut for timber. I see a great value in reforestation efforts and the conservation of trees, and the current water shortages in large parts of the US make this effort way more important than a lot of the other frivolous ways that we see our tax dollars being spent. Let's put people on welfare to work planting trees and watering them to make sure that they grow.

 

[KSQ2]

I really feel for you people west of the Mississippi. I don't know what to say other than that drought is a terrible weather event that doesn't get the big news headlines that hurricanes do, but droughts destroy people's livelihoods just the same as an earthquake or storm.
One idea that I have for a partial solution is that if we would spend the billions of dollars that are spent on war every year managing water, building reservoirs and desalination systems, installing more irrigation systems, and planting trees in the arid regions of the world there would be a lot less drought conditions.
Weather systems move long distances with the prevailing wind, and if it's already dry from where the wind is coming from, it won't be bringing any extra moisture along. Forests are tremendous reservoirs of moisture that draw lots of rainfall, which then continuously evaporates and continues to move along with wherever the prevailing wind is headed to. My uncle lives in eastern Washington state, which is a very dry region, but he says that when the first settlers arrived there in the Grand Coulee area there were trees growing on the south side of the Columbia river, and those early settlers grew dryland corn with good success. Now, after all the trees have been cut there is no longer enough rain to grow dryland crops, which is a good example of the necessity of trees in any given region.
Right now at this very moment on windy.com there is a strong prevailing wind blowing straight out of eastern Montana, moving directly southeast into Kansas, but since eastern Montana has no trees and no moisture, and neither does Wyoming or western Nebraska, there's probably no moisture in this particular wind stream.
I'm not a treehugger type of person that doesn't want to see any trees cut. I like to see trees managed and used as a natural resource, and then replanted when they are cut for timber. I see a great value in reforestation efforts and the conservation of trees, and the current water shortages in large parts of the US make this effort way more important than a lot of the other frivolous ways that we see our tax dollars being spent. Let's put people on welfare to work planting trees and watering them to make sure that they grow.

Makes sense to me!

 

[Drycreek]

I really feel for you people west of the Mississippi. I don't know what to say other than that drought is a terrible weather event that doesn't get the big news headlines that hurricanes do, but droughts destroy people's livelihoods just the same as an earthquake or storm.
One idea that I have for a partial solution is that if we would spend the billions of dollars that are spent on war every year managing water, building reservoirs and desalination systems, installing more irrigation systems, and planting trees in the arid regions of the world there would be a lot less drought conditions.
Weather systems move long distances with the prevailing wind, and if it's already dry from where the wind is coming from, it won't be bringing any extra moisture along. Forests are tremendous reservoirs of moisture that draw lots of rainfall, which then continuously evaporates and continues to move along with wherever the prevailing wind is headed to. My uncle lives in eastern Washington state, which is a very dry region, but he says that when the first settlers arrived there in the Grand Coulee area there were trees growing on the south side of the Columbia river, and those early settlers grew dryland corn with good success. Now, after all the trees have been cut there is no longer enough rain to grow dryland crops, which is a good example of the necessity of trees in any given region.
Right now at this very moment on windy.com there is a strong prevailing wind blowing straight out of eastern Montana, moving directly southeast into Kansas, but since eastern Montana has no trees and no moisture, and neither does Wyoming or western Nebraska, there's probably no moisture in this particular wind stream.
I'm not a treehugger type of person that doesn't want to see any trees cut. I like to see trees managed and used as a natural resource, and then replanted when they are cut for timber. I see a great value in reforestation efforts and the conservation of trees, and the current water shortages in large parts of the US make this effort way more important than a lot of the other frivolous ways that we see our tax dollars being spent. Let's put people on welfare to work planting trees and watering them to make sure that they grow.

Excellent post MM !