Vox

I remember Steve Martin's character in LA Story; he played a TV weatherman in the LA market and would tape his weather forecasts in advance if he had better things to do reasoning that it was LA, what sort of weather could there be?

I think Phoenix is sort of the same way- hot and dry in September and June, hot with 20% chance of rain in July and August. They have no idea what's actually coming until a few hours ahead of time- at least in winter they can the storms moving in from the coast

I tell my kids unless they study hard they'll either be picking up trash for a living or doing the weekend weather report.

Now Vox, be nice! Those meteorologists are smart people (I know some of them).

It's just hard to predict the weather here. Really, really hard, compared to much of the rest of the country. I could go into technical details, but let's just say that summer weather here is sorta touchy.

Oh, by the way, the forecasts are driven by computer models - the same kind that are used to forecast global warming (in one case, literally the same model).

heh heh like that you added the "more you know" jingle.

To quote Robin Williams in Good Morning Viet Nam,

"Hey what's the weather report?"
"You gotta window? Open it!"

I was just seriously cranky when I wrote that.

The problem is that D needs to know what to expect to schedule his work effectively. We checked the forecast before he started his latest project. A 'slight' chance for Mon-Wed was acceptable. A downpour after beginning, however, is darn near disastrous.

Now, trying to schedule the remaining pieces he needs to complete the job, we really need a consensus of what to expect. Not working, and then having no rain come, costs him not just time, it costs money. Heavy rain in the midst of a job costs him money and ends up requiring extra work.

I just don't understand how, if their job is to compile radar & historical data and run it through standard computer models, there is such disagreement. Why wouldn't there be more of a consistent picture obtained?

My view of meteorology is that it is one of the few jobs you can have where you can always be wrong...and not get fired. My dad always figured the local weather folks kept their rain gauge in an airplane hangar...we'd get buckets; they'd report 1/4".