I currently do not have a car. Thus, I take the bus everywhere. On the weekdays, it really doesn't matter much if it is raining or not (I need to go to work either way). However, the weekends are a different story. I generally like to go out and do stuff on my weekends, and that means lots of travelling around on the bus, and the required waits at (generally uncovered) bus stops, and walking to and from the bus stop. If I know it is going to have thunderstorms (not just rain; water doesn't bother me, electricity and water does) then I generally stay home on the weekend (rent movies, etc.), since I don't want to get stuck with lightning hitting while I am waiting at an uncovered bus stop.
Well, I have to go in today and pull 3 hours at work. Afterwards, I was thinking of going out from there. There's only one problem:
The Local Forecast:
- Weather Channel: no chance of rain, other than morning clouds nothing whatsoever either today or tomorrow
- Local 24 hour news channel: 50% chance of thunderstorms today, 40% this evening and tomorrow
Usually they are close to each other on most days, but you can't get much more different. I hop on the internet to check my home page, and it is "brought to you by the Weather Channel", so of course they show no thunderstorms. I checked another station's local forecast last night, and they had a 40% chance of thunderstorms. However, none of those stations are going to have a news show on until after I leave for work, so I'm stuck with the two above.
So, am I just supposed to average them out and say I have a 25% chance of getting stuck in a thunderstorm? Listen to one and give the one-finger salute to the other? I have a better solution. I look outside when I get out of work, and if it doesn't look like I am about to get dumped on at the moment, I will go do stuff around town (I may get stuck, but oh well). It's probably more accurate than they are, anyway.
I just find it annoying that they can't at least get into the ballpark with one another. Yes, I know that they are not terribly accurate to begin with, but at least they show you stuff happening in the weather and give you an idea what to expect. However, they don't even agree on the trends going on (Weather Channel shows the rain staying around Houston, while the local affiliate shows the rain spreading from there over to our area).
Sorry, I just had to rant about that.