Forecasts Spark Talks About Meteorologists’ Wrong Predictions

I don't think anyone in Oklahoma gets upset when the meteorologists are wrong about how severe the forecast is going to be. I think most of the Sooner State is breathing a sigh of relief today after holding our collective breaths all day yesterday, waiting on the predicted derecho apocalypse.

Nobody is right all of the time, and I think we should feel fortunate that our weather professionals are 0-4 during PDS forecasts in 2025.

Four times this year, Oklahoma has been issued an onslaught of Particularly Dangerous Situation days, all of which have come up pretty much empty.

Of the two days when we were warned of severe, large, violent, long-track tornadoes, while there may have been two or three short-lived twisters off in the rural farmland of Northwest Oklahoma, that was the extent.

When the forecast called for widespread monster hail, some areas of the state got it in very isolated, short-lived supercells. And when the buzzword was "derecho" coupled with 100+MPH winds and more large hail, we waited until it turned out to sort of happen across North Texas, well beyond the predicted area.

Nobody is complaining. 

The fact that we're having such a stretch of seemingly lucky and contradictory weather is a huge relief for every Oklahoman. It seems all corners of the state have been fed some real turd-sandwiches in regards to weather over the last couple of springs.

With the exception of the tornado outbreak that happened on a day with "very little" tornado potential, everyone is thankful our meteorologists have gotten this year so wrong.

That being said, there is a little talk online about why every chance of rain has them crying wolf.

There's one or two reasons why. 

Simply put, nobody can tell the future. Even the National Weather Service missed the last red-letter weather day. Does that make them bad at their jobs? No. It's literally predicting the future, and they just relay to the news media whatever the computer spits out.

Second, the emphasis on really playing up the risks is one of two things, or both.

The idea of getting your news from the television anymore is a trend lost to a bygone era. If you're under the age of 55, you've known the news hours and hours before your chosen channel prints out the internet and reads it in front of a camera. Maybe you saw it on Newsbreak, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, etc... It's old news by the time the news gets it.

Because the news media is so far behind adopting the internet as a viable platform - password-protecting content, paywalls, forcing app downloads, etc, ratings in television viewership have fallen to historic lows.

That being said, local television remains the number one medium when it comes to breaking news, such as weather. This is the reason every local news outlet takes full advantage of its broadcast.

Example: Multiple sponsor graphics on the screen while chasing tornadoes. It's also why the new trend in weather coverage is to offer entertainment as well as information when the staff gets a little chatty.

In those moments when all hell is breaking loose, they enjoy their highest ratings and a captive audience to advertise to, making up the difference in shrinking revenues due to the popularity of cord-cutting, streaming, etc...

Clear as mud? 

While June can still produce some serious weather across the Sooner State, here's hoping Tornado Season '25 has had its last hurrah. While nobody truly enjoys the Oklahoma heat, at least it keeps twisters and large hail at bay.