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291 points meetpateltech | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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lampiaio ◴[] No.45958532[source]
Reminds me of a funny WWII story:

Kenneth Arrow and his statisticians found that their long-range forecasts were no better than numbers pulled out of a hat. The forecasters agreed and asked their superiors to be relieved of this duty. The reply was: "The Commanding General is well aware that the forecasts are no good. However he needs them for planning purposes."

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cogman10 ◴[] No.45959504[source]
I think it was a stats class where I learned this, but as it turns out bad weather is less common than good weather. To be a fairly accurate weather person, you merely need to say "there will be no precipitation" and you'll be right like 90% of the time anywhere on earth.

What makes that funny is that historically, weather forecasters have been less than 90% accurate.

Now, I will say that today's weather models are pretty dang amazing. The 10 day forecast rarely wrong for me.

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mikestorrent ◴[] No.45959833[source]
Your fairly accurate weather person is going to have to stay away from Vancouver / the Pacific Northwest ;-)
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1. ◴[] No.45960271[source]