Happy Groundhog Day!
February 2nd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
No shadow…No more winter. At least that’s what Punxsutawney Phil said this morning. Does the country actually take Phil seriously, year after year? Some do. In fact, he might even be more accurate than Roanoke’s area meteorologists, especially after yesterday’s double bobble. For Phil, it is fairly simple. He comes out of his stump atop Gobbler’s Knob. If he sees his shadow, it will be winter for six more weeks. If he doesn’t, we will get an early spring. Pretty simple. Not only does he predict the weather six weeks out (which is pretty impressive), his system is fairly inexpensive, and has an accuracy of about 40%. That’s not too bad for a furry rodent that speaks Groundhogese. And who knows, maybe he has been more accurate than that. Perhaps his Inner Circle (men with the top hats) has messed the translation up a time or two. As for our local meteorologists, they use enhanced 3D doppler radar systems to predict our weather within a window of only a couple of days, and I am sure that it is much more expensive than Phil’s. What about their accuracy? Yesterday it was 0%, which is pretty bad when you are predicting on an hour-by-hour basis. Phil doesn’t look at it on an hourly basis. In fact, he doesn’t even predict on a daily basis. He goes for the long haul of six weeks. So with all this said, the next time you try to plan your outdoor activities, I would recommend looking back at February 2nd instead of turning on the local news.
Jason
Posted by Jason in General | 2 Comments »
No shadow…No more winter. At least that’s what Punxsutawney Phil said this morning. Does the country actually take Phil seriously, year after year? Some do. In fact, he might even be more accurate than Roanoke’s area meteorologists, especially after yesterday’s double bobble. For Phil, it is fairly simple. He comes out of his stump atop Gobbler’s Knob. If he sees his shadow, it will be winter for six more weeks. If he doesn’t, we will get an early spring. Pretty simple. Not only does he predict the weather six weeks out (which is pretty impressive), his system is fairly inexpensive, and has an accuracy of about 40%. That’s not too bad for a furry rodent that speaks Groundhogese. And who knows, maybe he has been more accurate than that. Perhaps his Inner Circle (men with the top hats) has messed the translation up a time or two. As for our local meteorologists, they use enhanced 3D doppler radar systems to predict our weather within a window of only a couple of days, and I am sure that it is much more expensive than Phil’s. What about their accuracy? Yesterday it was 0%, which is pretty bad when you are predicting on an hour-by-hour basis. Phil doesn’t look at it on an hourly basis. In fact, he doesn’t even predict on a daily basis. He goes for the long haul of six weeks. So with all this said, the next time you try to plan your outdoor activities, I would recommend looking back at February 2nd instead of turning on the local news.
Jason
