Math Geeks? Can You Solve this? Seems Easy, But I've No Clue.

[Cavebear]

None of that is how the weather works, and conjoining math to it makes it doubly not work.

The confusion isn't the math, it is understanding what the weather forecast means.  You can have a 100% rain forecast and stay dry.  It just means it rained all around you.  When I was young, I saw it raining across the street and we never got a drop in my yard.

[Sorginak]

The confusion isn't the math, it is understanding what the weather forecast means.  You can have a 100% rain forecast and stay dry.  It just means it rained all around you.  When I was young, I saw it raining across the street and we never got a drop in my yard.

It's probably more accurate depending on where one lives.  Florida, Washington state, any area along the coast probably receives rain more accurately with the percentage provided on the weather channel.

[Cavebear]

It's probably more accurate depending on where one lives.  Florida, Washington state, any area along the coast probably receives rain more accurately with the percentage provided on the weather channel.

Some places are easier to forecast than others/  Wahington DC is notoriously difficult.  We get the Bermuda Highs coming up the coast, jet stream variations from the North, and standard weather coming over the Appalachians fro the west.

We have a routine joke here about shoveling 12" of" rain" off our driveways in January.

[aitm]

It's all relative. 10% chance of rain over your house....100% chance of rain over amurica.

[Cavebear]

It's all relative. 10% chance of rain over your house....100% chance of rain over amurica.

Some people don't understand the breadth of weather systems.  If I recall correctly, a British political reporter, used to having a single weather system covering all of Britain at once, forecast the voting in the 1964 US presidential election being depressed because he was in NYC and it was raining.

And along the same idea, Americans think 200 years is a long time while Europeans think 200 miles is a long distance...

[Unbeliever]

There's a 50% chance of rain - either it will rain or it won't...

[Cavebear]

There's a 50% chance of rain - either it will rain or it won't...

But it also means likely to rain "SOMEWHERE" in the area.

[Cavebear]

And there is another thing to keep in mind.  The odds of rain change by day.  Today was 50%.  But the odds of it raining on day 2 will change overnight.  And the odds of it raining on day 3 are even less certain. 

As a gardener, if there were 50, 40, and 30% chances of rain in successive days and my garden meter said the soil at root level was "dry", I would water deeply day 1.