Last Winter in Canada, we were issued storm warning after storm warning, with no storm actually arriving. It seems more a push to get people to buy things (stock up on supplies) and then stay in their homes (like prisons). One news report even mentioned, after predicting a ridiculous amount of snow, that it might not look like much snow because all the snow just blows around. Right. They’re trying to make a disaster out of some flurries.

Another thing I heard was threats of a difficult summer. The article went on to predict “periods of hot and periods of cool weather” which, if you know Ontario, Canada, is the way it is anyway. But this was written as if it were a massive disruption in our lives.

I have an interesting question about weather forecasting, which we all know isn’t an exact science and involves models that predict future behaviour. The problem with this is that any un-exact science that predicts future trends is going to use so many different models and algorithms and other methods that every weather station should independently predict at least slightly different weather. There shouldn’t be some agreed-upon consensus. Just like you go to another doctor for a second opinion, you should be able to see another opinion from a different weatherman. It seems like predicting weather is full of chaos math and tea leaf-readings, so why do they all agree? Wouldn’t there be a big, constant impetus to provide more accurate weather predictions, prompting meteorologists to try new, different models and scatter from the pack?

Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like current temperature is quite right. I’d love to test the affect weather forecasts have on people. Say it is 22 degrees Celsius. If people were told it was “really” 35 degrees Celsius, would they feel like it was hotter than if they were told it was 25?