WOW! Some serious rain heading our way! (Leonard, Rule: live, farmer)

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by eileenkeeney

So If I did own a house in Austin, I would want to have storm shutters, like I would if the house was at the coast.
Except here, I would want the shutters to be made out of the same durable metal they use for the roofs, that have the warranties for hail damage, instead of wood.
I probably do not want to put in the tube sky lights I was considering.

I didn't hear any hail or see any. But I was inside, with the door open (screen closed) watching the storm.

Don't know if you need to go that far, a hail storm like that is a fairly uncommon occurrence (but obviously it does occur). Despite what happened to us we would still have no issues putting in skylights and/or tubes. The years of positive benefits don't outweigh the once every several years that hail that is bad enough to damage them (at least for us). Plus you can purchase hail resistant skylights if you wanted to.

[CptnRn]

My house has had 3 of those light tubes since 1989, not a single crack yet.

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Two and a half inches of rain so far here in Hutto!

[jobert]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

Two and a half inches of rain so far here in Hutto!

Weather.com has said all day that we only have a 30% chance of rain..yet it's been never-ending drizzle.

Maybe they're trying to say there's a 70% chance it could stop at any time.

[Bravebird79]

The lightening last night was incredible. I was driving and the sky literally lit up and i had to slow down until it got dark again (i was struggling to pay attention lol), lol.

The birds in our apt complex were even huddled together under the building eaves like "Oh snap, its crazy out there!" lol

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by jobert

Weather.com has said all day that we only have a 30% chance of rain..yet it's been never-ending drizzle.

Maybe they're trying to say there's a 70% chance it could stop at any time.

Put it this way, if you have a 30% _chance_ of stubbing your toe, if you stub your toe, did the _chance_ of you stubbing your toe increase to 100%? If you flip heads on a coin, did that _chance_ of flipping heads suddenly go to 100%? Nope in both cases. They are reporting the probability given current conditions, the actual outcome, which is separate from the probability (unless the system has feedback, which in this case it actually does, but that's a different story) is another matter entirely.

Lot's of folks get tripped up by this.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

Put it this way, if you have a 30% _chance_ of stubbing your toe, if you stub your toe, did the _chance_ of you stubbing your toe increase to 100%? If you flip heads on a coin, did that _chance_ of flipping heads suddenly go to 100%? Nope in both cases. They are reporting the probability given current conditions, the actual outcome, which is separate from the probability (unless the system has feedback, which in this case it actually does, but that's a different story) is another matter entirely.

Lot's of folks get tripped up by this.

What if you're chewing gum, and you have a 30% chance of accidentally biting your lip.

I'm kidding. but seriously - my interpretation was like one's chance of farkling once and winning, rather than playing all day.

[eileenkeeney]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

Put it this way, if you have a 30% _chance_ of stubbing your toe, if you stub your toe, did the _chance_ of you stubbing your toe increase to 100%? If you flip heads on a coin, did that _chance_ of flipping heads suddenly go to 100%? Nope in both cases. They are reporting the probability given current conditions, the actual outcome, which is separate from the probability (unless the system has feedback, which in this case it actually does, but that's a different story) is another matter entirely.

Lot's of folks get tripped up by this.

I actually did stub my toe about an hour ago, and have not since.
I would say my chances of stubbing my toe again went down after I stubbed it, because I am now being more careful. (I guess that is feedback)

However in the case of the coin, my chances are unchanged.

As for the rain, the rain which has already fallen does effect the probability of rain in the very immediate future. I don't think they are updating the probability that often. So if this morning they said there was X% chance of rain, it is very reasonable to think that any rain which has already fallen had decreased the chance of more rain to a value lower than X.

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by eileenkeeney

I actually did stub my toe about an hour ago, and have not since.
I would say my chances of stubbing my toe again went down after I stubbed it, because I am now being more careful. (I guess that is feedback)

However in the case of the coin, my chances are unchanged.

As for the rain, the rain which has already fallen does effect the probability of rain in the very immediate future. I don't think they are updating the probability that often. So if this morning they said there was X% chance of rain, it is very reasonable to think that any rain which has already fallen had decreased the chance of more rain to a value lower than X.

Yes, I specifically gave two different examples, one where the probability changes over time and one that is fixed.

The reported chance of precipitation does indeed change over time as new data is added to the set that the probability is drawn from. However, the addition of the actual outcome of "given this set of meteorological conditions, this is the probability that this event will happen again" the fact that it did rain today would _increase_ the chance that it would rain given the same conditions in the future.

[eileenkeeney]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

Yes, I specifically gave two different examples, one where the probability changes over time and one that is fixed.

The reported chance of precipitation does indeed change over time as new data is added to the set that the probability is drawn from. However, the addition of the actual outcome of "given this set of meteorological conditions, this is the probability that this event will happen again" the fact that it did rain today would _increase_ the chance that it would rain given the same conditions in the future.

Why does the fact that it rained today increase the probability that it will rain when the same conditions occur in the future?
Is this just because the model is so dependent on past behavior, and less dependent on actual knowledge of the forces involved.
In reality, would the same conditions not really have the same probability (the real probability not being the same as the predicted probability).
I guess this all assumes that having a complete understanding of the forces involved would still give us a probability instead of more of an actual.
In reality I guess it would then become an actual, and not a probability at all.