Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Strunk White, Idiot Weatherman: Today Isn't Today

In addition to plaguing the airwaves, Strunk White, Idiot Weatherman, also runs a local weather website. The home page shows a 5-day forecast, with each day in a discrete square containing the day of the week, date, projected high and low temps, and projected percent likelihood of precipitation.

I was baffled that Strunk White, Idiot Weatherman, could be so consistently wrong. I was repeatedly foiled in my outdoor plans by believing the 0% chance of precipitation predicted for a given day, only to be rained out.

Then, I clicked on one of those squares. And lo and behold, the true idiocy of Strunk White, Idiot Weatherman, was revealed unto me.

The main square would say, for example: Friday, May 1st, Hi 75, Lo 55, 0% Precip. Stupidly, I presumed this meant that there was no rain predicted for that day. But when you click on that square, it subdivides into morning, afternoon, evening, and night. There, you would see 0% Precip in the morning. But then you might see, say, 30% Precip that afternoon, 50% that evening, and 100% that night. So, once morning is over, it's a new and different day, with a new and different forecast. I don't know how that happens. It just does.

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