Word: predictions
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This relationship gives the meteorologists a toehold. By measuring the speed of the wind aloft and the distances between the waves, they can predict with some accuracy how fast the waves will drift. They gather this information by means of sounding balloons that carry small radios. When such reports from all over North America are evaluated and combined with local data, the Weather Bureau predicts cautiously what sort of weather the waves aloft will bring to each part of the U.S. during 1) the next five days, and 2) the next 30 days...
...hostess planning a garden party finds little use for these forecasts. They do not say, for instance, whether it will rain in Little Rock two weeks from Tuesday. They merely predict whether the temperature during the period covered can be classed as "much above normal," "above normal," "normal," "below normal" or "much below normal," and whether the precipitation will be "light," "moderate" or "heavy...
Better Than Guessing. On this basis their accuracy is fairly good. Namias says that the five-day forecasts are "within one class" of being right about the temperature 80% of the time; the monthly forecasts are right 75% of the time. Rain and snow are much harder to predict than temperature is; the five-day forecasts are right about 40% to 50% of the time, and the monthly forecasts less than 40%. Even this low accuracy, however, is better than mere guessing based on "most likely" conditions for a given place and season...
Leontief hesitates to use the word "predict" when he talks about the possible consequences of his work, but readily asserts that his figures should be able to "narrow down the range of economic possibilities until probabilities are pin-pointed...
...number of years, weathermen have known that they could accurately predict the weather by compiling extensive data. However, by the time the computation had been completed, the weather had already arrived. Now with the calculators, this 24-hour delay may be reduced to a few minutes...