Weather Forecasting

It is rainy, very windy and, for this time of year, quite cold today in Alexandria, Virginia. Three days ago, none of this was in the forecast.

Nature, however, had other ideas and a deep low pressure area suddenly formed off the North Carolina coast. We are in the backwash.

Even though weather forecasting is much improved since then, these words of Francis Arago, a 19th Century mathematician, are well worth considering:

"Never, no matter what may be the progress of science, will honest scientific men who have regard for their reputations venture to predict the weather".