Why Are They Making The Same Wrong Predications Today?

My father had a good friend, not only a friend but a close relative of his from the same village, and he was working in the postal department.

He was a very gentle and soft-spoken person with a mop of grey hair that gave him the look of a feared Mafia Don.

He stayed with us for a couple of months when he was posted to the Colombo main office, which was located in front of the president’s residence.

We used to call him PC Mama, and one day when we were talking and mocking the inaccurate predictions made by the meteorological department over the radio (no TV then), he broke the silence and asked us, “Do you know why they are so inaccurate?”

Then he told us about one of his own experiences while working as the postmaster in the Galle post office.

One day he was approached by someone well-dressed, and based on his looks, he was in the civil service too and asked whether he could help the other gentlemen.

Being the very gentle and humble person he was, he agreed to help.

Then he was given a heap of postcards and told they had been arranged date-wise, can you mail them accordingly and accurately?

He agreed, and then the other person left.

So he looked at those cards to see and they were the weather forecasts made for the following day from Galle district.

He did as he agreed, and a week or so later, the same gentleman came to see him to thank him.

So, out of sheer curiosity, he asked that gentleman, what was all that, and he was boldly told that “I took an unofficial one-week leave, and I did not want anyone to realize that I was missing from my station.”

It was not a time with mobile phones or any accurate weather forecasting equipment, but having all the sophistication today, why are they making the same kind of wrong prediction?

This is something interesting to explore but I am sure they are not trying to emulate what their predecessors did five decades ago.