Saturday, January 31, 2009

Fair weather friends.

Quick, I've snuck in here to write this one while Hell Boy is out, because we have a kind of agreement that in the interests of my mental health, I am not to discuss the weather.

Hell Boy himself, being descended from a long line of weather enthusiasts, could happily watch the weather channel all day.
That is, of course, if it weren't for me, and my horrifying tendency to making scathing, cynical and let's face it, far more accurate predictions that is commonly offered by the likes of a FOX meteorologist.

Few things wind me up faster that meteorology.
It is a topic that seemingly has some bizarre power over me.
The truth is that weather concerns me very little, but that I get upset by the "profession" of meteorology, as they quite obviously just make shit up and get away with it.
It's the getting away with that I find inflammatory.

Hands up who can afford to be as inaccurate in their job as the good folks at Fox Weather?
My hands are down, that's for sure.

I get so upset that I get to the point where I can't finish my sentences.
I once became so distraught by the nonsense on FOX Weather that I phoned them.
More on that later.

I have season tickets with South Sydney.
Rugby league is a winter sport and our seats are not undercover.
The rain won't stop me going to a game. It would make me wear a hat though.

What the rain will stop me doing, however, is going to the Opera.

Once each year, I like to go to Opera in the Park.
It's something I genuinely adore.

In fact, we enjoyed the best night ever last Saturday despite the performance being the worst choice of opera of the many years that we've been going.

Anyway, we arrive early for this gig.
This year it was 5:30 for an 8pm start.
The picnic before the performance being the very best part of the outing.
Good food, good company, reading, sewing, lying on a blanket under my favourite tree in the world....sigh
Incidentally, this is the very tree my ashes will be sprinkled under one day.
My tree.
And coincidentally it stands right besides Bonnie's tree. How cool's that?

So, 2-3 hours outdoors, and a bunch of picnic gear means that I want to know whether it is going to rain or not.
With that in mind, you would expect that switching on the Fox Weather channel just hours before the event, would in some way illuminate us.

I really do think that is a reasonable expectation.

Imagine my surprise then, to discover that the best they could tell me was that there was a 50% chance of rain.

50%

This statistic means that it might rain, or it might not.
Strictly speaking, that's true of every day, a five year old could tell you that.

Hedging your bets, they call it.
Covering your arse as well.

Not being content with that answer from our dear friends at FOX, I checked their online forecast as well, hoping that maybe they had a more thorough answer available for me.

And they did.

Trouble was that it bore precious little resemblance to the forecast they were showing on the TV at the very same time.

And so I placed a call.

After more than a minute of questioning, they were so kind as to tell me that, no, realistically they didn't actually have a clue if it would rain in Sydney that night at all.
And that's fine, just don't pretend that you do, that's all I'm saying.

Neither did they seem to know why they were simultaneously predicting conflicting weather patterns across their two mediums.

But what really got me, was that they didn't know the answer my final question, which was,

"Are you able to tell me how many billions of dollars of satellite equipment you currently have at your disposal?"

We drew a blank on that one as well.
I took that to mean that they might know how to interpret the information gathered by a satellite, or they might not.
50% chance.

Honestly, these people get away with blue murder, don't they?
At the beginning of each month, they stick up a chart with each day listed and either a sun, a cloud or a sun and a cloud, to let us dumbies know what's going on out our windows.

It is my wish to somehow print one of these gems and to bust out the red pen and correct it as the month progresses.
What would their accuracy be, do you think?

I know that the one month I really had a good hard look at it and didn't forget all about it, they didn't get 2 days without exposing themselves to be total Charletans.
The prediction of 20 days of rain in Sydney during a summer month cannot be dismissed as anything other than a moderately funny practical joke, or mental retardation.
And yet, they made that call.

Why?

Methinks it's because they know no-one pays attention or has the means to compare their calls against fact later, and so they just make the chart look pretty or they're pushing the envelope amongst themselves to see who dares to make the silliest prediction.

And that I might respect. Or I might not.

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