Stuff I wrote elsewhere: forecasting is hard, especially about the monsoon

In the morning paper, I pine over our elusive monsoon forecast:

I know this is the time you would really like a forecast. You would really like to know when New Mexico’s summer rains will finally get here, and whether we will have a wet monsoon season.

Sorry. Can’t help. Believe me, I’d like to. We are so far into drought debt that it will take an extra-wet monsoon to get us out, but the forecasters just don’t have much to say about what we can expect.

update: I realized after seeing the tweetage that my blog excerpt here left out the best bit:

What scientists are finding as they study the monsoon, Gutzler said, is that the forecast problem is tough to crack. “More understanding,” he said, “leads to a deeper appreciation of uncertainty.”

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