{"id":118000,"date":"2023-08-30T11:37:51","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T11:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yourclomid.com\/?p=118000"},"modified":"2023-08-30T11:37:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T11:37:51","slug":"people-are-only-just-realising-what-a-40-chance-of-rain-really-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yourclomid.com\/world-news\/people-are-only-just-realising-what-a-40-chance-of-rain-really-means\/","title":{"rendered":"People are only just realising what a ‘40% chance of rain’ really means"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s a natural part of being British to spend a good chunk of your day looking at the weather forecast \u2013 but it turns out loads of us don\u2019t know what one key indicator means.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no secret that this country has a propensity for rain, however, the \u201cpercentage chance\u201d in the forecast is something frequently misread here in the British Isles.<\/p>\n
In fact, the measure for the likelihood of rain is even read differently here than how it is in the US, making things even more complicated.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Temperatures in Britain to drop to chilly 7C right before five-day September heatwave<\/b><\/p>\n
Across the pond in the States and Canada, the \u201cchance of rain\u201d makes reference to a calculation looking at both how likely it is it will rain and how widespread that rain will be over a given area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The answer to this equation is called the \u201cprobability of precipitation,\u201d or \u201cPoP,\u201d which is a multiplication of forecasters\u2019 confidence rain will happen, and the the amount of area they think it will cover.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s given as a percentage by presenters and weather sites over there, but here in Blighty, it's a little different.<\/p>\n
In fact there is no single, universal method for meteorologists worldwide, with different techniques preferred depending on where you are on the globe.<\/p>\n
The UK's Met Office doesn\u2019t use the PoP equation because it can get confusing \u2013 and even misleading<\/p>\n
A woman has taken to TikTok to express her utter shock at the PoP system used in the US, which is different to what is used in the UK.<\/p>\n
User sydjkell took to the site in 2021 to express her astonishment at the variation and has since gone viral in a big way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI thought that when they said there's a 30% chance of rain that it meant there was a 30 per cent chance that it was going to rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never ever ever knew it meant that there's a 100% [chance] it's going to rain and it's going to be in 30% of your area.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t quite right, because if you were to have a 30% chance of rain using the PoP system, that percentage could be reached in a number of ways.<\/p>\n
Because it's a calculation, it could be reached by a 100% (1) chance and 30% (0.3) coverage as discussed.<\/p>\n
It is true that 1 multiplied by 0.3 is 0.3, or 30%, but 30% can be reached too with a 0.5 chance multiplied by 0.6 coverage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To make things even more complex, in the UK it\u2019s done differently again, something that was cleared up by the Met Office, who made their own video.<\/p>\n
According to the Met Office\u2019s experts: \u201cThe percentage of rain means the chance of rain at that time for that location.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo 60% means a 60% chance of rain, 40% chance of dry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are different ways of expressing percentages, and in the US they do use the area one, but generally not here in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the latest breaking news stories and incredible tales from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking <\/i><\/b>here<\/i> <\/b> .<\/p>\n
Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s a natural part of being British to spend a good chunk of your day looking at the weather forecast \u2013 but it turns out […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n