The “perfect storm”!
“We’ve not seen anything like this in decades!”
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Enough, the forecasters would suggest, to make the blizzard of ’78 seem like a mere dusting.
Even before the first flake was expected to fall, schools were canceled throughout the Northeast, from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Millions of school children were ready for a few days at home, expecting to help their parents dig out from two to three feet of snow.
States of emergency were called in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts — not in Rhode Island. Trucks were banned from Route 95 in Connecticut. All before the first flake was expected to fall.
Flights were canceled by airlines fearful that if they flew into an airport their equipment would be stranded when the storm of the century arrived.
No hesitation among prognosticators. No complication with this storm. It was the big one.
But then instead of snow it was more like rain, freezing rain and sleet, and it didn’t arrive until well into the afternoon last Monday. And when it ended, it wasn’t the storm that any weatherman or woman had predicted. It was slippery, it was messy, but it wasn’t the “perfect storm,” the storm of the half century or century, or the big one.
The problem was the “perfect storm” was predicted by imperfect weather forecasters relying on a system that has advanced with technology, but remains one part science, one part voodoo and one part entertainment.
The problem is that when these weather doctors make a prediction it has enormous consequences. And when they make a prediction with as much conviction as they did this time, the consequences go far beyond a school closing. It translates into a mistake that probably cost businesses and individuals throughout the Northeast maybe billions of dollars in lost wages and lost business.
Only after the “storm of the half century” never materialized did we begin to hear how complicated it was to predict. It relied upon two systems converging into the “perfect storm”. But more than one forecaster was predicting the “perfect storm,” and even when it had just about subsided, one station was still broadcasting across the bottom of its screen about how treacherous conditions would remain over the next 24 hours.
Because of the flawed prediction state government was closed in at least three states, preventing all kinds of transactions. Trucks were stalled at the Connecticut border when they could have made the trek with little difficulty. Businesses were closed, workers stayed home. And all the weathermen could say is that in weather school they learned when to admit they had made a mistake, and this was among those times.
It’s one thing when you predict a sunny day that becomes cloudy or even rains. It’s another when the prediction brings commerce and education to a virtual standstill over an entire region of the country.
Had the forecasters not been so certain and indicated the complexities of the prediction at the outset, some decision-makers might have been more inclined to follow their sense of vision and common sense, and possibly react differently.
