Re: I may have read that wrong
Posted by
Chris in Tampa on 3/8/2013, 8:25 pm
I'm not exactly sure of all the differences between deterministic and probabilistic forecasts.
http://www.google.com/#q=deterministic+probabilistic+meteorology
I think it may mean that previously, unofficially, they gave a more exact prediction of what would happen. I see there public products as being probabilistic, based on the probabilities something will happen. That seems like it will remain unchanged.
Basically, maybe they previously said, unofficially, that 10 feet of surge is what it expected. That I think would be deterministic. But what is the probability? Could it be 5 feet, 15 feet? It is more helpful to know what the probability is at various surge levels. What is the actual probability that the surge will be at least 10 feet? How about at least 5 feet or at least 15 feet? Maybe it is a 90% chance of 5 feet, maybe 60% chance of 10 feet, maybe 30 % of 15 feet. A deterministic forecast of 10 feet would not be as helpful as those percentages. I just made up those numbers for example.
I'm not really sure of what I just said, but that is how I think I understand it. If you throw a more exact number unofficially, perhaps that leads to a little confusion so they want to rely on the probabilities which to me are much more helpful.
I was taking a look at some of these links:
http://tornado.sfsu.edu/geosciences/classes/m698/Determinism/determinism.html
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/saisons/info_prev_proba_e.html |
123
In this thread:
Post A Reply
This thread has been archived and can no longer receive replies.