Thursday, November 29, 2007

DOOMSDAY part II - "Son of Superstorm"

(photo:cretinous hippy)
(Thanks to Laura K. for reminding me about this. And in response to offline requests, I'm going to try to update posts when relevant. Plus I really missed having this excellent photo on my frontpage).

Well, miraculously we survived the first "superstorm" predicted to devastate the Netherlands Nov. 24-28 by British crackpot little-appreciated scientific genius Piers Corbyn.

(photo: weatheraction.com)

The picture above, from his website, reassures me that despite Corbyn's lack of credentials and failures to predict weather accurately in the past, he's really on to something!

Here's a screenshot of the latest disaster prediction.

(weatheraction)

Damn! And I had just taken my Wellingtons off...

This guy has got it all figured out: it doesn't matter if you're wrong all the time, just keep screaming. You'll draw attention to yourself, and some small percentage of people will pay for your scam valuable forecasts out of boredom or superstition. Kind of like horoscopes.

There's just a certain percentage of people out there who want there to be some magic, mystery, romance, soap opera in their lives.


And yes, I know, I'm just helping him out by giving him attention.

But I did want to mention that it appears formerly respectable Dutch weatherman Piet Paulusma has shifted his stance somewhat: now he doesn't appear to be endorsing Corbyn's predictions.

On the other hand, he's not exactly disowning them either:
On his blog entry from Monday, Nov. 26, titled "Piers Corbyn: Superstorm coming a little later," he includes a story from laatste nieuws.nl. Here's my translation of the first two sentences:

"The chance of a superstorm in the Netherlands is not yet over. So says British weatherman Piers Corbyn, according to whom the extremely heavy winds will now be coming a little later. He predicts, with a 72 percent probability, that the storm will be raging over the Netherlands at the end of this week or the beginning of December. Most gusts will have a speed of 110 kph."


Did you know that 28 percent of all statistics are just made up right on the spot?

Anyhow, given that Corbyn has extended his prediction, it's only fitting that I extend my wager offer: 100 euros says no winds measured at more than 100 kph in De Bilt up to and including Dec. 2.

(jon appleyard)

3 comments:

Laura K. said...

I'm willing to up that bet to €500 ;)

Derek said...

So what's the verdict? Does Piers owe you guys 600 Euros?

Be advised that I will interpret a non-response to mean that he definitely doesn't.

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