Jake Orosi
EF4
Is it good or bad that I never heard of Kevin Martin before reading that article and following the links today?
I think it's an inevitable consequence of the internet that people with...atypical frames of reference will see some of that freely-available data and run with it. It's not just weather data; maybe a more famous example would be people who self-diagnose medical conditions using internet information. You know how it goes - people do an internet search for their rash and get a choice between a grass allergy and the ultra-rare Superburnyproblygonnadietomorrow Syndrome and you know which one they're going to decide they probably have. They will even doctor-shop and adjust their complaints and reported symptoms until they find a doctor who is willing to at least explore the possibility of the exotic illness even after three or four different doctors have already correctly diagnosed them with the more mundane malady.
So it goes with those two-weeks-out forecasts. People get excited at the thought of severe weather so when they see a suggestion of it on the model, they can't help themselves - no matter how far out the projection is.
I think it's an inevitable consequence of the internet that people with...atypical frames of reference will see some of that freely-available data and run with it. It's not just weather data; maybe a more famous example would be people who self-diagnose medical conditions using internet information. You know how it goes - people do an internet search for their rash and get a choice between a grass allergy and the ultra-rare Superburnyproblygonnadietomorrow Syndrome and you know which one they're going to decide they probably have. They will even doctor-shop and adjust their complaints and reported symptoms until they find a doctor who is willing to at least explore the possibility of the exotic illness even after three or four different doctors have already correctly diagnosed them with the more mundane malady.
So it goes with those two-weeks-out forecasts. People get excited at the thought of severe weather so when they see a suggestion of it on the model, they can't help themselves - no matter how far out the projection is.
