In early April, the local weathermen in Dallas failed to foresee the widespread storms that brought baseball-sized hail to the Dallas area which caused $1 million in damages. So, they immediately started predicting the next storm–two weeks ahead of time when the storm system was still near Japan.
Doomsday was set for April 26th and the dire warnings became worse each day. On a scale of one to five, all of North Texas was at a four (next to the worst). They used their usual terminology, as though weather science is a fact instead of a theory: “WE WILL GET LARGE HAIL,” “WE WILL GET 60- to 80-MPH DAMAGING WINDS,” etc. They tracked these storms by the minute: “It will arrive in (your city here) at 10:37 PM.”
Schools were closed and events were canceled. The storm would bring grapefruit-sized hail. They said that it was going to be so bad that they called it a “PDS” storm–a “Particularly Dangerous Situation”–the first PDS prediction in five years. (Is this like “Double Secret Probation?”)
Well, instead, we got a nice gentle nine-tenths of an inch of rain. Here’s a standing forecast that’s better than listening to the weathermen: “Might rain; might not.”