April 18, 2019. Madison, Mississippi. Forecasting the Weather.

In Nova Scotia, the weather forecasting is almost always wrong. Vinal once commented that if he was wrong at work 50% of the time he would be fired. But the weatherman predicts the weather that does not come to pass. The problem of course is the ocean which plays tricks on the patterns. You can not count on the weather forecast in Western Head. You must look outside. The same is true for the DC area. Between the Chesapeake Bay and the Allaghany mountains, trying to find out what the weather will do is difficult if not impossible, so the forecasts are often wrong. Schools are cancelled with the forecast for snow along with meetings and concerts. But the foot of snow predicted overnight does not come, and you look out to see green grass and no snow at all, even though the schools are closed. In Mississippi, the weather forecasting is easier. There is no large b body of water impacting the weather and the topography is level so the weather forecasters can predict the weather heading our well quite easily. And most of the time the forecast is accurate, even to the hour of the day when the storms will arrive. I have never experienced such high level of accuracy from the weather forecasters. Everyone here depends on them. But today they missed it by a few hours. My Lyft driver told me this morning that schools were being closed at 11:30 due to the storm. The morning was pleasant and I had looked to see a storm coming later in the day but I was wrong. The storm was coming at 1:00 so the school system wanted all children safely home by the time of the storm. But the storm came around 4:00 and when it came it was another big one. Heavy rain. Big wind. Loud thunder and bright lightning. The forecast was accurate, but just a bit later than predicted. People stay home with a forecast of storms. The storms come and go quickly so folks just wait out the storm. But today the prediction was just a bit early. I do enjoy watching the weather forecasts here because they are almost always correct. Impressive.