An Open Letter to Everyone Criticizing Maine Meteorologists for ‘Getting It Wrong’

To everyone criticizing Maine meteorologists for 'getting it wrong':

I've seen your complaints. You're upset at meteorologists because this storm turned out to be a dud and didn't deliver the snow that was originally forecast. If that's you, let me ask you a question. How good are you at predicting the future?

The definition of weather forecasting from Wikipedia is "the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time." The key word there is "predict."

You might predict the winning numbers for the Powerball, but you aren't basing your choice on computer models, observations, and the education you received to become a lottery player. Meteorologists make their predictions with the knowledge and experience to forecast weather that they learned when they decided to get a degree in meteorology. Sure, this is comparing apples to oranges, but in the end, meteorologists are right more often than they are wrong.

Sometimes though, their forecasts miss, like this one that flew by Maine to the south rather than across the state. So no big snow for us, but lots of it for a lot of the East Coast. When meteorologists do miss, they thankfully have pretty thick skins, because you guys are brutal.

For everyone posting on social media that meteorologists got this storm wrong and are "never" right, knock it off already. Funny how when they do get it right, which is more often than not, no one ever says a thing.

So, on behalf of the meteorology community who can't say it, I will: "Sit down and shut up." Thank you.