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Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Weather forecasting open to interpretation The beginning of the new calendar year has been a challenge for those who predict the weather and those who must rely upon those forecasts in making decisions that may impact thousands of people. One weather forecaster says 6 to 8 inches of snow is coming, while another says it will be 10 to 14. If meteorologists are all looking at the same information, how can their forecasts be different?
Alan Czarnetzki, professor of meteorology and director of the Science Center for Teaching, Outreach and Research on Meteorology at the University of Northern Iowa, says that weather forecasting is not the same as predicting the time of sunrise and sunset. "In fact," he notes, "the latter is not a prediction at all, but rather a calculation of an event that can be precisely known ahead of time."
He says the atmosphere, on the other hand, is a turbulent mixture of gases whose future state and location can't be precisely known in advance. "That leaves some things open to interpretation and differences of opinion. However, he adds, "that doesn't mean a weather forecast is the same as a guess!"
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