Tis the season...not for the various holidays people celebrate. It is the season for snow forecasts. I live in Georgia, and this weekend the "ominous" word snow was in the forecast. In the South (and frankly the Washington DC area where I lived also), winter forecasting is particularly challenging. However, there is something else that I often noticed in those places, "wishcasting." Some people just really love snow. However, I often wonder if that love of snow makes them consume factual information about the forecasts differently. Is there a psychology or science behind why people do this?
For example, the National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Watch for parts of north Georgia earlier this week. I immediately saw people in social media talking about snow and whether they should go to the store. The knee-jerk reaction in many parts of the country, particularly the South, is to go buy milk, eggs, and bread. Ah, French toast for all.
Let's now explore the case that I have been alluding to for Georgia. The three graphics below were issued together by the National Weather Service Peachtree City. Because I am a meteorologist and Director of the University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences Program, people always ask me about the weather. I get direct messages in social media, emails, and texts all of the time when these types of weather threats appear. Interestingly, not one single person from the suburban Atlanta area asked me about the 30-40 mph winds, potential for flooding, or the threat of falling trees. Although for the Atlanta area and much of North Georgia, these things were clearly the more relevant threat. They all asked about whether it was going to snow. If you look carefully at the maps, it is fairly clear that the threat of frozen precipitation primarily confined to the northeastern, mountainous part of the state.
The meteorologist in me was more concerned about hazards associated with the wind and rain closer to Atlanta. Yet, everyone that saw me Friday or Saturday asked about snow. To understand these tendencies, I turned to the field of psychology and was immediately drawn to the book, The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. Steve Rathje writes in Psychology Today,
According to their theory of reasoning, reason’s primary strengths are justifying beliefs we already believe in and making arguments to convince others. While this kind of reasoning helps us cooperate in a social environment, it does not make us particularly good at truth-seeking. It also makes us fall prey to a number of cognitive biases, like confirmation bias, or the tendency to search for information that confirms what we already believe.
Rathje writes primarily about how this theory applies to how people consume or dialogue about political beliefs. However, it sure sounds like what I see all of the time when snow or winter weather is in the forecast.
Some of my observations are clearly "wishcasting," but I believe that something else is going on too. I want to use the following hypothetical forecast to make my point: "the models call for 3 to 6 inches of snow in XXX." Though a range is given, many people will say that the forecast was wrong if "only 3 inches" of snow falls in location XXX. Why is that? Bonnie St. John wrote a piece in Quartz about the work of cognitive psychologist Albert Ellis. He pioneered something called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (ERBT). St. John points out in her article,
(he) first coined the term to describe the act of escalating a situation into the most negative possible conclusion, often with no concrete evidence to prove its validity. Dr. Ellis theorized that adversity or events alone don’t cause people to feel anxious or upset. Instead, you get the most worked up over beliefs or preconceived notions about the potential consequences of the negative event.
I wonder if this explains why many people see only the "6" in that "3 to 6 inches of snow" forecast or is it the ever-present challenge of misunderstanding uncertainty and probability in weather forecasts.
Forecasting snow is very hard, particularly in the South. As soon as the "word" enters the forecast, it evokes many things for many people. For many, it stimulates a feeling of excitement, beauty, and fun. For others, it may trigger the thought of having to shovel it or deal with a child with a "snow day.' It may also trigger irrational behavior like buying 10 loaves of bread for a 1-inch snowfall. I understand all of these reactions (well except maybe the bread one). However, as a professional within the field of meteorology, it is more important to me that people consume information properly. Brad Panovich is one of the best broadcast meteorologists in the country and an admitted snow lover. I highly recommend this blog entry on how he separates love of snow from objective snow forecasting. My other homework assignment (hey I am a Professor) is to study this thoughtful set of rules (below) by National Weather Service-Norman meteorologist Rick Smith.
