Apr 7, 2010
One of the things I do on a regular basis is check the weather forecast. Will it be warm enough to leave my windows open today? Do I need an umbrella? Will the sky fall on my head? Etc. But checking the forecast means I'm relying on a prediction of future events, and unless you're Steve Jobs, your predictions are occasionally wrong. It's ok to be wrong, but three pieces of information would help me understand things better:
- Who was wrong? Was it a specific meteorologist, or a certain atmospheric model?
- How often? If Mike the Meteorologist is right 30% of the time, and Bob the Meteorologist is right 60% of the time, I'd probably put more faith in Bob. Even though Bob has an annoying voice and can't hold his liquor.
- How wrong? If the predicted temperature was 75°F but it's actually 70°F, that's better than a predicted temperature of 35°F versus an actual temperature of 30°F. Yes, they're both 5° off, but the first prediction is 7% off, while the second is 17% off. That's a fairly significant difference.