Due to circumstances unrelated to the matter at hand, my day had already been ruined when I decided to take a walk on one fateful February day in order to calm down. Being paranoid, I of course decided to take a look at the weather forecast before heading out. According to the forecast, rain was not set to fall until nighttime – even still, I took my trusty umbrella with me. What do you know? Not ten minutes had passed before it started to rain, justifying my distrust of the forecast. The satisfaction, however, did not last. You see, even though I was right, in the end, it still rained, filling me with immense rage. Alas, it was too late to turn back, and I carried on, with the rain taunting me by occasionally halting, only to come back swinging just a few minutes later. The whole time I was out, my mind failed to move on from the question how this could keep happening. This, as you might be able to tell, had not been the first time that the forecast had betrayed me – it was, however, the last time, for one cannot be betrayed by something one doesn’t trust anymore. Perhaps it was the fact that I had had a rotten day, but this had been the last straw.
Meteorology as a “science”
Now, based on my knowledge of weather calculation, which is, by the way, next to non-existent, it is the field of meteorology that specializes in weather forecasting, with meteorologist being the term for a person practicing this borderline pseudo-science. Researching the field for just about nine seconds, I saw that one can even get a PhD in meteorology. This, I feel, is odd. Would you trust a doctor who is known to be wrong 50% of the time? I reckon you wouldn’t. Do you know what happens when you achieve less than 50% of points in a math test? You get a failing grade. That’s right. Now, why are these people allowed to be called doctor? This is truly a disgrace. I’m not saying meteorology shouldn’t exist – perhaps a name change would be better, seeing as the suffix “-ology” implies a level of knowledge about a certain topic. What do meteorologists actually know? During my hate fueled research, I read up on how the forecast is actually calculated, or rather predicted, because it is mostly nothing more than predictions based on previously existing data, which, again, is fine. But when I was out on my walk and it started to rain, just out of curiosity, I refreshed the weather application on my phone, which had previously shown me that it would not rain. Even now when the rain had started, the app had not changed – are you kidding me? A monkey could tell me if it’s raining right now, but so-called meteorologists cannot. I thought long and hard about why this was allowed to happen, and I quickly realized – what alternatives do us humans have? Forecasts are the only thing that are even remotely close to calculating the weather. But still, it rubs me the wrong way. These people, meteorologists, are getting paid for a job that they frequently fail at. Some people might say that the forecast, more often than not, is correct. First of all, being correct at least sometimes is, in my opinion, the bare minimum for a group of “scientists”. Second of all, oh, it’s been sunny and hot for this entire last month, it’ll be sunny and hot again today – good, educated guess you moron.
Final thoughts
What’s worst of all is what came after all this – asking myself: “what’s wrong with me?” after thinking of nothing but my undying hate for the field of meteorology. “Why can’t I just be less hateful?” Well, tough luck. The only good thing about this whole situation? When I got back home from my walk, I didn’t really care about all the other things in life making me unhappy anymore, for my heart had found a new hate – I hate the weather forecast.