Weather It Is (Being Optimistic)

Good Morning:

There is often told a joke: "what is the difference between a Jewish Pessimist and a Jewish optimist?"  The pessimist says that it can't get any worse, while the optimist says yes it can.

I am reminded about this when answering some readers' comments/questions.  For example, all I have to do is mention the word "snow" and suddenly everyone thinks it will snow.  For instance, we see in our crystal ball (the "Global Ensemble") that it should stay mild until late Shabbat, but that temperatures will start downwards soon after.  We see that there is a high probability of rain after mid-next week, and... we see a 15% chance that the end of the two week period will bring our next snow.

So, here is what happens.  The Jewish optimists will say:  "those 3 ensemble members (15%) must be right and the other 17 must be wrong."  The right way (i.e, to be a Jewish realist) is to say that there is a small chance of snow, and we'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I request anyone planning a simcha or other event check with me beforehand so that we don't actually schedule the next snowstorm on the wrong day.  Once we get closer to the event (assuming it happens -- as I am an optimist), it will be much harder to make any changes to the weather pattern.  On the other hand, while we're still far away from our next "big" storm, small changes we make to the dials on our "weather-machine" can make a big difference.

Barry Lynn