Kenya’s Daliy Nation reports that ” The KENYA Meteorological Department predicted a return of the infamous El Niño rains in late 2009. The prophecy has come to pass amid dissatisfaction from the public on the patterns and timelines that the meteorologists had given.

The rains came in November; farmers were happy and sowed, based on the quantitative forecast. But within no time, the rains subsided, throwing the whole nation into a quagmire of confusion.

Politicians saw a window of opportunity to gain some mileage by threatening to collaborate with wheat farmers in suing the weatherman for issuing a false forecast. But while the dust was still in the air, the skies yielded. So huge was the deluge that it swept away a bus, drowned livestock and claimed several lives in the very town where complaints were loudest.

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable aspect of life, but one that pushes humanity to act. To overcome it, man has sought various interventions from soothsayers, astrologers, prophets, magicians and scientists to forecast what the future holds.

Science remains the most credible way of predicting the occurrence of phenomena. It is based on empirical study of phenomena, using laws and principles that have stood the test of time. Meteorology is an example of a scientific discipline, which attempts to explain atmospheric conditions and has found a useful application in forecasting weather.

In developed countries, extreme weather conditions are accurately predicted to the day, hour, and in magnitude. The advance in computer technology and its convergence with the weather satellites have played an immense role in this. But in developing countries, this has remained a big challenge due to a number of problems that are worsened by public ignorance on what weather forecast is and is not.

Our Meteorological Department can attest to this judging by the chronic harsh verdicts from the public despite its dedicated team that gives daily weather forecasts. But why is this so?

FORECASTING SEVERE WEATHER and extreme climatic events is one of the major challenges facing meteorological services worldwide, more so in the tropics. This is worsened by ignorance, technological challenges, complex physical features and lack of appropriate data.

Weather forecasting basically uses atmospheric properties deemed conducive for the occurrence of a given phenomenon using collated data, computer models, satellite images and observations. The predictions only give probability of possibilities of occurrence, intensity and areas likely to be affected.

Like any other scientific method, weather prediction is nowhere near 100 per cent in direction and depth. Unfortunately, weather predictions are normally taken by the public as the gospel truth, and used as the rope to hang the weatherman when these predictions fail. We don’t consider that the predicted conditions are still subject to myriad other factors that are out of control of scientists.

A major objective of forecasting is to unmask fate and inform the current on timely strategic interventions that will mitigate the adverse events of the predicted phenomenon, by informing policies and supporting the end user of such information to adopt accordingly.

When the weatherman announced that El Niño rains were in the offing, the government swung into action with ministries likely to be affected putting in place measures to alleviate its severity.

It is important for all to understand what weather forecast is all about. A forecast that doesn’t translate into light but heat is useless. An accurate forecast that induces no action is worse than an inaccurate forecast with action.”

Photo from Paths To Knowledge (Dot NET).