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Hungary Fires Its Top Weather Officials After an Inaccurate Forecast (nytimes.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The National Meteorological Service predicted a severe storm over the weekend, prompting the government to postpone fireworks planned for a national holiday. The weather ended up being calm. The New York Times: Meteorology is sometimes referred to as the only field where the experts can be consistently wrong and still keep their jobs. But that did not seem to apply in Hungary on Monday, when the country's top two weather officials were fired after an inaccurate forecast. Their predictions of extreme weather conditions in Budapest had prompted the government to postpone fireworks for its national holiday, St. Stephen's Day, seven hours before they were scheduled to begin on Saturday. The night turned out to be calm.

On Sunday, Hungary's national meteorological service, the Orszagos Meteorologiai Szolgalat, issued an apology, saying that the weather on Saturday had been the least likely scenario based on its models. "Unfortunately, this uncertainty factor is part of our profession, we have tried to communicate this as well," the agency said on its Facebook page. By Monday, the head of the weather service and her deputy had been fired by Hungary's innovation minister, Laszlo Palkovics, a top official under Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Tuesday, the service issued another statement on Facebook, saying it was a professional institution and not a political one. The agency said it did the best it could to prepare the forecasts, based on the date and time of the planned fireworks, using the available information to its experts. St. Stephen's Day celebrates the role of Stephen I, who became king in 1000 A.D., in the founding of the Hungarian state. "Our firm position is that despite significant decision-making pressure, the colleagues of the O.M.S.Z. performed the best of their knowledge and are not responsible for any alleged or real damage," the agency said, using an acronym for the agency.
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Hungary Fires Its Top Weather Officials After an Inaccurate Forecast More

Hungary Fires Its Top Weather Officials After an Inaccurate Forecast

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  • They should be thankful (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @10:52AM (#62817601) Journal

    These people should be thankful they are not Italian geologists...

  • And what's the real reason? (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @10:58AM (#62817629)

    Seriously, how did he piss off Putin's suppository?

    • Re:And what's the real reason? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh&gmail,com> on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @11:21AM (#62817725) Journal

      That is the real reason, in typical right-authoritarian fashion Orban does not understand science and even sees it as adversarial to his ideology, so getting the weather wrong on the day of a major event is plenty of reason to fire the people involved. Naturally, they'll be replaced by incompetent political cronies who will slowly run the service into the ground, Venezuelan-style. Maybe they'll hold back on forecasting bad weather on the day of a future celebration and a bunch of people will die, this will be seen as more acceptable than erring on the side of caution because a dictator needs national celebrations much more than a democratic leader does to shore up public support.

  • Uh-huh .... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @11:01AM (#62817641)

    Hungary Fires Its Top Weather Officials After an Inaccurate Forecast

    Like all dictators Orban needs good weather for his spectacles with which he hopes to beguile the adoring masses of his loyal followers.

  • The summary acts like it was only political reasoning behind firing these people, but doesn't such a bad forecast just seven hours before seem pretty wrong even for a meteorologist?

    People can be fired from professional roles because of incompetence, and it seems like here that may be what happened because even by the standards of weather forecasters the error was particular egregious.

    • I don't know. I live in central Florida and the forecast here is wrong even for the *current* weather. i.e. you can look on your phone and the current weather won't match what you see out the window. I don't see how you could perform your job worse than that. It's one thing to get a prediction wrong but to not even be able to accurately state current weather is pretty bad. But apparently they all still have jobs. If any of them do get fired, I'm pretty sure it's not for bad forecasting since apparentl

      • Being from the same area I have to agree that you can get a better guage of the weather here at this time of year by just looking at the sky than relying on a forecast., to be fair though with the way thunderstorms pop up it's kinda impossible to be accurate though.

        Every day this month there's a 90% chance of rain, everyday. How long? Who knows, could be 10 minutes, could be a full hour. Could be at 1pm, 5pm, 7pm, who knows. It could pour buckets a half mile down the road but be zero where I am standing.

        • But your assumption is the 90% chance applies to your exact location not to the general area. Also your assumption that the chance somehow translates to intensity. That is two extrapolations you have made that the number does not represent.

          • wasnt talking about 90% coming from the forecast but my own observations of around 9 out of 10 days this time of year it will rain to some degree. the forecasts are actually about 20-30% most days

            • It sounds like you don't understand how rain measurements and classification works. "To some degree" include a "trace" which is also known as 0 rain.

              You can have drops falling from the sky, but there was still no rain from a forecasting perspective.

              See also: Data quantization

      • Totally agree. Where I live (South Europe), there is a private institute that delivers weather forecasts to the whole region. Years ago, their founder (a high school teacher, who learned meteorology by itself) was in charge of producing forecasts, and he was extremely accurate and well respected. He passed away some years ago, now they have a big parallel computer, a group of researchers led by two university professors, M.S. and Ph.D. students, and they cannot get correct forecasts with a 24 hours time fra

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Saffaya ( 702234 )

        Tropical weather is notoriously hard to forecast.
        Isn't Florida sub-tropical?
        That may have something to do with what you describe.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @11:15AM (#62817701)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • There is a valid issue though, the difficulty of evaluating people in difficult settings where nobody can be perfect.

        We have the same problem with people who manage a lot of money or other valuable assets, like investment bankers or CEO's. For several years the CEO of Peleton appeared to be a genius and few if any investors balked at his compensation for helping make them money. Then coronavirus ended, and the genius disappeared.

        In the last couple years I have seen so many articles about the people wh

      • Florida Man strikes again!

        We've had numerous situations where we've been hours away from a hurricane sweeping through and making landfall, only for it to turn abruptly and shoot up the coast.

        So far, so good. But then...

        can get it "less than 8 hours from now" wrong, what hope does Hungary have?

        You must be consuming pro-Orban news that told you to feel this way, because the first part of what you said should leave able to comprehend that the weather pattern unexpectedly changed direction at the last minute and rained another place nearby. So the forecast was a good forecast, just like the hurricane warning that says it is coming at you be ready is a good warning, even if it changed direction and went somewhere else.

        The forecast was correct, the

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's likely these weather people forecast for the whole country or something. They depend heavily on automated computer models and those are only part of the picture. Those forecasts are rarely accurate.

      You need someone with local knowledge and skill to get even have a chance of accuracy. The local land and water formations can have a huge effect on weather that the computers don't account for. Also, sometimes just LOOKING at the current storm track and data will tell you something vastly different than the

    • Why can't we do that with politicians?

      Right, because they don't have to be competent, they only have to appeal to the dimwits that vote for them.

    • The summary acts like it was only political reasoning behind firing these people, but doesn't such a bad forecast just seven hours before seem pretty wrong even for a meteorologist?

      What was bad about the forecast again? The weather issued warning for severe storms to hit the capital. The storms did not hit the capital but instead hit other parts of the country. That sounds like every hurricane I know where no one can predict exactly where it might land 7 hours in the future.

      People can be fired from professional roles because of incompetence, and it seems like here that may be what happened because even by the standards of weather forecasters the error was particular egregious.

      Please spell out what you mean by "egregious". Again the storms existed; they changed directions but did not hit the capital as predicted 7 hours earlier. See every hurricane in existence.

    • Re:If it's professional, competence matters (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @01:12PM (#62818251)

      The summary acts like it was only political reasoning behind firing these people

      It was.

      but doesn't such a bad forecast just seven hours before seem pretty wrong even for a meteorologist?

      Nope. Weather modelling is imperfect. Not only in its forecast, but also its specificity. Every country I have ever lived in had sever weather alerts issued only to be retracted, sometimes with far less than 7 hours warning.

      People can be fired from professional roles because of incompetence

      Indeed, but these guys were fired because they displeased an authoritarian master.

      • Indeed, but these guys were fired because they displeased an authoritarian master.

        Especially on that day. If they had gotten it wrong on any other day for any other city, no one would have cared. But the authoritarian master had to have his fireworks in the capital that day.

    • The summary acts like it was only political reasoning behind firing these people, but doesn't such a bad forecast

      You're a moron. It wasn't a bad forecast. It was an accurate forecast.

      A forecast gives percentage changes of things to happen. In hindsight, we know that the storm was a real storm, and that it changed direction at the last minute, and the heavy rain fell nearby but not actually on the exact place where the fireworks show had been scheduled.

      That's not an inaccurate forecast. That's just how weather works.

      You're too stupid to keep pretending to be a nerd, Kenny.

  • Master Orban (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kant ( 67320 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @11:07AM (#62817669)
    Orban's authoritarian government continues well: after the hunt for homosexuals, immigrants and foreigners, now the hunt for scientists. Women, get ready: soon Viktor will be preparing pyres to burn you if he doesn't like you, or you look at him wrong.

    • Old Soviet Joke:

      Armenian grandfather on his deathbed: "My dear kids, take good care of the Jews. Protect them and shelter them wherever they need it. Because when they're gone, guess who's next?"

  • borrow Trump's Sharpie.

  • Anecdotally, I remember in the 80s the forecast was generally close to being right. Now I see forecasts for a big storm or lots of rain all the time and not a single drop falls. Usually it goes like this: next week looks like mostly sunny and cloudy days, just before the week starts the forecast changes and fills with a chance of rain for every day of the week, than as each day comes the rain is removed for that days forecast.

    Back when the local TV weather man used their experience with the area they gen

    • Re:Weather forecasts have gotten worse. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @11:25AM (#62817749)

      It's more that weather models fail to adapt to the changing climate. What used to work out doesn't anymore now that the weather has gone bananas.

      • The modes are based on physics. The laws of physics don't change no matter how much we've screwed the climate. I suspect there are multiple reasons one of which is the models are trying to be too accurate and chaos theory being what it is that could lead them up completely the wrong path.

        An old weather guy probably had a feel for his local area (though whether that would work in modern climate change is anyones guess) whereas the computer just sees numbers.

        • The forecasts are modeled after experience. Models are based on how the weather behaved before and weather patterns are being used to predict those. If the patterns change, of course the forecast model fails.

          Same for the old fart looking out the sea and telling the weather. He does exactly the same as a computer, he uses experience (for a computer that would be existing models and past weather records) and predicts the weather based on observation. Same problem: If the experience (and existing models) no lo

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            "Models are based on how the weather behaved before"

            I think you're assuming these models have more built in intelligence than they actually do. Various different models are usually run for given areas with different parameters and the weather guys select the outcome that appears most often in the runs. It could be their manual parameter tweaking is off.

          • These days, the models are based on physics, not statistics as they were in the 1940s. They should be of interest to nerds given the high performance computing systems that run them.

        • Re:Why was parent modded +5? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by OldUserBackAgain ( 6505346 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @12:45PM (#62818121)

          The modes are based on physics. The laws of physics don't change no matter how much we've screwed the climate.

          Yes, the models are based on physics but the models are neither reality nor physics. They are an approximation based on observations. Models need to change when conditions change, but making new good models isn't something you just whip up in an afternoon since they require observations and the weather cycles can be rather long.

          The GP was modded +5 Insightful because it is. Climate change has disrupted the weather patterns and made the models less accurate. Perhaps there are more factors. One can also ask why your post isn't modded lower since your comprehension about models is obviously lacking.

        • The modes are based on physics.
          Only if you want to be pedantic.
          In fact they are based on empirical evaluation/experience.

          The laws of physics don't change no matter how much we've screwed the climate.
          Of course they don't change.

          But you know, if you have a model that describes the expansion of a litre of water from 10C till 80C, that model won't work beyond 100C at all.

    • I see the issue being also that people at the time accepted the forecast as being generally right for the area. These days people expect the weather to be accurate to their specific location which is unrealistic. I see it every time someone complains they did not get the rain that was predicted; the city got rain just not their house so therefore the prediction was wrong in their eyes.

      • That's exactly what happened here; the storm was a real storm, of the predicted intensity, and it rained nearby.

    • > Anecdotally, I remember in the 80s the forecast was generally close to being right ...

      From 1976 to 2005, 72 hour forecast went from 25 to 62 % accuracy (forecast skill score) and 36 hour forecasts went from 50 to 78% accuracy. https://www.weather.gov/about/... [weather.gov]

      "The science of numerical weather prediction has made great strides in the past 30 years. Significant improvements in forecast accuracy is a modern science success story. Today’s [2009] five-day forecast is now as accurate as the three-day f

    • Anecdotally, I remember in the 80s the forecast was generally close to being right.

      LOL WUT! You remember very very wrong. Weather forecasting has gotten far more accurate since the 80s. Your post is the equivalent of saying "I remember in the 80s computers were faster and smaller". It's completely devoid of any reality.

      The only thing we are unable to accurately predict are extreme weather events. It's the kind of thing we were unable to predict at all, let alone with any kind of accuracy back in the 80s.

      Back when the local TV weather man used their experience with the area they generally got it right.

      hahahahah no man. Just no. Bards have sang about how horrendous local weather forecast

      • Back then I never tried to plan my week around the forecast but now I do. Maybe, just maybe, I now notice when they are frequently completely wrong because it screws up my plans.

        Perhaps ignorance is bliss.

  • How much of Hungary's weather is affected by conditions to the East? Over Ukraine. I'd venture a guess that their weather isn't the first front that they are worrying about right now.

    In fact, weather over that country might be considered to be tactical information and as such, not publicized.

  • Meteorology in 2022 is a matter of data gathered by a broad array of sensors and then fed to an algorithm that consumes a major percentage of the entire super computing capacity of the world. The algorithm is a partial differential equation that attempts to establish a set of coefficients for a multidimensional polynomial that when propagated further would accurately simulate future weather events. This is surprisingly trivial to understand, it requires little more understanding of math than when a high sch
  • The way Hungary is going, they were going to get scapegoated eventually for something. Better to be the scapegoat for a fireworks show that didnâ(TM)t happen, versus a scapegoat for a fireworks show that injured/killed people.

  • ...was to cut funding? The NOAA still has a website that looks like it was made in the mid-1990's and maps that look all kinds of ancient jank.

    https://www.weather.gov/ [weather.gov]

    Their funding/budget for making a nicer website has obviously been cut plenty. But, hey, if you want to embarrass your country and make international news in a bad PR kind of way, fire your top staff instead.

    • The NOAA still has a website that looks like it was made in the mid-1990's and maps that look all kinds of ancient jank.

      Most likely because NOAA does not spend their limited money on a website. NOAA and The National Weather Service focuses most of their money on collecting and distributing weather data. Whatever fancy graphics your local news station/website wants to use to depict the weather is up to them as I suspect most people do not get their weather from weather.gov directly but other sources indirectly.

      • Actually, news outlets source their data from IBM. IBM purchased Weather Underground. Everyone with a personal weather tracking device, approximately 180,000 personal weather stations, gives their data for free to IBM. IBM then turns around and charges an arm and a leg for that data via their weather APIs. Media outlets pay IBM an arm and a leg for what should be free local weather data.

        NOAA sources are only utilized for weather alerts. THE ALL-CAPS, "THE WORLD IS ON FIRE" VARIETY. INCOHERENT INFORMAT

        • And where does IBM get their data? By your own admission, some of it comes from NOAA. NOAA generally does not do as much prediction as feed data. IBM with their modeling does a lot better job; however, my point again is NOAA does not spend a lot of money on a website the general public does not use. They are spending their money on the data that the public uses indirectly.
  • In Dallas, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban Got a Standing Ovation From the Trump Faithful [texasmonthly.com]

    On Thursday, in Dallas, Orbán received a standing ovation at the semiannual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), America’s most important right-wing political event. He spent much of his speech defending his vision of a “zero-migration” country defined by ethnic homogeneity and Judeo-Christian values. “The globalists can all go to hell,” he declared to an audience of

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