The Chicagoist Weather Experiment: Week Two
By Sarah Dahnke in News on Feb 5, 2007 5:33PM
All experiments need a constant, and since the weather-forecasting game in Chicago is all over the map, we thought we’d turn to our old friend The Weather Channel to provide us with some less-than-extreme results. But since Chicagoist doesn’t have cable and isn’t over the age of 60, we don’t watch The Weather Channel. So the 24-hour weather station’s Web site was our source for weather this past week. We tend to use this as a primary source for weather anyway, since it is so readily available, and we wanted to know how it stacked up against the locally based meteorologists.
Find out how accurate The Weather Channel was on the coldest damn week of the winter after the jump.
Monday: TWC predicted snow, a high in the low 20s and 10 mph winds. It snowed steadily until about 1 p.m., then out of nowhere, it was clear and sunny until sundown. We wished TWC would have told us it wasn’t going to snow all day. The wind was gusting pretty heavily, making us feel like it was blowing stronger than 10 mph. Some slightly painful, icy precipitation began around 7 p.m. And it was definitely in the low-to-mid 20s.
Tuesday: The forecast was for mostly cloudy skies with scattered snow flurries and snow showers. TWC predicted a high of 21 degrees and winds between 10 and 20 mph. Everything was accurate except for the clouds. It was sunny all day. And our feet froze until they were numb for the five minutes we had to wait for the bus. It took about an hour to regain feeling in our toes.
Wednesday: TWC told us it would be cloudy with a high of 27 degrees, with winds 5 to 10 mph. Again, it was sunnier than predicted, as we only saw a few clouds in the sky. And it was really cold. Bank displays were telling us it was anywhere between 21 and 25 degrees.
Thursday: We were prepared for snow flurries or snow showers (can’t make up your mind, eh, Weather Channel?) with a high near 25 and 10 to 20 mph winds. It varied between sunny and cloudy skies all day, but flurries rolled in around noon. And it was quite cold and windy, like every other day this godforsaken week.
Friday: TWC predicted snow flurries early in the day with a few snow showers later in the day. They predicted a high of 20 with winds 10 to 20 mph, once again. It was fairly sunny all day and effing COLD. We would have celebrated in a bikini outside if it was as warm as 20 degrees. It was more like 10. And that newly formed hole in our gloves was causing all of those frigid temperatures to seep in and cause our left hand to go numb. The snow flurries did come, but they were random. We recall looking outside around 2 p.m. to see what looked like a bucket of snow fall past the window. Then we didn’t see any more snow for an hour. And it was definitely windy.
Second week's conclusion: If you’re simply looking for the high temperature of the day, The Weather Channel will provide you with a fairly accurate prediction. And because they update the forecast throughout the day, you can check every time you’re about to step outside to see if anything has changed. Just don’t count on them to tell you accurately if it will be sunny or cloudy or precipitate in some fashion. Their forecasts are as open-ended as a horoscope. Plus, you don’t get to form that special bond with the meteorologists on TWC like you can with your local weather forecasters.
Next week: A full report on another Chicago news station’s meteorologist. Can he or she stand up to the oh-so-convenient Internet or the wind-obsessed Skilling? Find out next Monday.
Weather Channel map photo courtesy of orcoo.