No one is going to care about this post. It’s 2AM and it’s way too niche - but if I hear one more local newsperson say, “flooding like this only happens once every 500 years,” which is not true and completely mischaracterizes how probability thresholds work in modeling, I’m gonna fuckin lose it.
*nods in FL, where we’ve been having “record flooding” for over a decade now yet they keep developing our wetlands which are our natural flood prevention and storm barriers and yet they can’t seem to make the connection even though they keep rebuilding the same destroyed homes year after year*
Thanks for this. I haven't seen the report(s) you're referring to, but I remember seeing other complaints about that mischaracterization. IIRC what I read then, using the same figure of 500, it describes events with probability 1/500 (0.2%) of happening during a given year?
Accurate, and probability is only based on the prior historical data. (probabilistic vs predictive)
*nod*
Fake news! We’re all going to have to study meteorology 🥶
To be fair, they're usually quoting public officials.
6 years ago my house was hit with a "500 year flood" that almost destroyed my home. 3 years ago it happened again and my home way destroyed. But I was once again told it was a 500 year flood.
Enrages me.
I care. It drives me fucking nuts.
It's late afternoon here, and we have had a spate of "one in a hundred years" floods over the last few years. They need new ways to describe these now frequent events.
We, as humans, have an endless need to label things. These weather events are going to get worse and more frequent as the environment is polluted. Period.
Don’t inform, dramatize! It’s infuriating.
Add me to the list of "drives me 🤬 nuts".
How many local newspapers include an audio track when you buy it at the news stand? Bluetooth or 3.5mm audio jack?
As they ignore every single climate scientist. All the sighs. The scariest class I had as an honors student wasn't med biology, it was climate science.