EDITORIAL - Forecasts hit or miss, like masiao tips

People can talk for days about their experiences following a typhoon. Yet, no matter how harrowing these experiences might be, time always manages to soothe and coax these experiences into something that memory eventually cradles with a certain fondness.

These experiences become the stuff of which discussions liven up the drinking table. Or they become the bedtime stories that lull children to sleep. They are the mentally archived bits of information that stir up the newsroom banter as each new storm makes up yet another story.

But not all experiences become fond narratives that get enriched with each retelling. There are bad experiences as well, as when each and every storm almost always seems to bring out the worst in some people.

There are those who take advantage of a storm’s aftermath by hoarding goods and jacking up prices. There are those who see the confusion as a license to take what is not theirs. And always, always, the shortcomings of those from whom much is expected seem to stand out.

Some of these bad experiences are what they are — bad experiences. There are, however, certain misplaced ill feelings that are unwarranted. More often than not, it is the people who, for whatever reason, bring these ill feelings upon themselves.

Take for instance the public’s love-hate relationship with Pagasa. The weather bureau is praised if expectations born of its forecasts materialize, but hated if the forecasts do not match what eventually happens.

Actually, this is a folly that is unfair to Pagasa and does nobody any good. The Pagasa, like all meteorological service providers the world over, is not a dispenser of predictions. It merely issues forecasts based on models shaped by previous weather characteristics.

Nobody, not even the pope, can tell which way the wind blows. What Pagasa does is give forecasts that, like popular masiao tips no one gripes about, can either hit or miss. The truth is, by merely giving forecasts, the Pagasa never errs. Those who get angry get angry in vain.