Weather It Is (A Break Before the Next Storm)

Did you believe it was going to snow?

The days prior to our last (and first) winter storm were days of soul-searching.  How not to let hope outweigh sound reasoning?  There were certain markers in the global ensemble forecasts that suggested we would see snow or ice, but others that indicated it would be too warm to stick around (i.e., accumulate).  My wife told me that if the guy in Har Gilo doesn't say anything, then it's not going to snow.  So, what's the point of listening to me? 

All of this is made more difficult because of global warming.  The warmer the atmosphere, the more it expands towards space.  This means that historical markers like the temperature at various levels in the atmosphere have less meaning now, and we need to look at just how close the freezing air is to the surface.

All this makes forecasting an accumulating snow more difficult.  While I have had my successes and failures, or at least one failure, one thing I've learned is to wait for the results from our high or even highest resolution forecasts.  These forecasts incorporate the most up to date physical packages representing the heating of the earth by the sun, the transfer of heat and moisture into the atmosphere, how this heating creates winds, the movement of heat and moisture from place to place, and the storms and clouds that are created in their place.  These forecasts told me that we would soon experience the weather we had: a good deal of rain, strong winds, and some ice and snow in the higher elevations of Gush Etzion (not Jerusalem), and the Hebron mountains.  We'll probably repeat this process at the end of the month, when our next storm is expected.

With all this complexity, it's very easy to get lost in the details, and let our beliefs or even hopes influence both what we (as forecasters) tell others, or what we believe will be the outcome. 

One example: those who want to believe that the whole Coronavirus "thing" is just a hoax, or a conspiracy to control our lives.  If you're one of those,  then you'll be very susceptible to manipulation of facts, or even a single fact.

For instance, someone rightly pointed out that the number of people diagnosed with the Flu is down, and that comparatively few people are dying from the Flu.  In fact, one recent CDC report listed almost all deaths in one week as being from the Coronavirus, rather than the Flu.  This could be for a number of reasons: social distancing and mask wearing is helping to prevent the spread of the Flu,  people are dying of the Coronavirus instead of the Flu, or there could be a country or even worldwide conspiracy to make the Coronavirus seem worse than it is, in order to control our minds (and hence our actions).

If the conspiracy theory is correct, then we should return to our normal lives, go about our business without fear, and fight back against those whose only goal in life is to make our lives miserable enough that we'll accept anything they tell us to do -- even give our wealth over to a socialist paradise.

So, let's accept this viewpoint that the Coronavirus "scare" is really just a "bad Flu" or even just the Flu, but look at the implications of it.  

The US CDC estimates that the year 2018-19 had about 35 million Flu infections (US only), and about 34,000 deaths, or a mortality rate of 0.09%.  If this were a typical year, we would expect similar numbers of sick and mortality rate.  Yet, the CDC Coronavirus tracker now estimates that there are about 24 million cases in the United States, and 400,000 deaths.  This is a mortality rate of 1.66%!  This means that this mysterious Flu is 18 times more lethal than the typical Flu.  This puts the lie to the idea that nothing unusual is going on.

The Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 675,000 Americans.  Then, the population was about 1/3 what it is now, meaning that in today's numbers that would be about 1.9 million Americans dead.  So far, the Coronavirus or unknown Flu (they say) has infected about 7% of the population.  The Spanish Flu is estimated to have infected more than 25% of the population, so an extrapolation suggests that our current pandemic is as deadly as the Spanish Flu.

Fortunately, there is a vaccine for the Coronavirus.  Here in Israel, we're way ahead of the world in distributing the vaccine.  We're also fortunate that our population is on average younger than in other countries, e.g., the United States has an average age of about 38 years, while our average age is about 30. This could explain why our mortality rate is lower than in the United States (about 0.7%). 

This all sounds pretty scary, and yet there are people who prefer to risk the things they know of then take a risk on something that they know nothing about.  For example, there are those who believe it is a greater risk to get the Coronavirus vaccine than being infected by the disease instead.  You can tell them that the vaccine has been tested and shown to be safe.  But, then they ask, but what are the risks way down the line -- even though we see very severe, continuing long term risks from the Coronavirus. This just shows that the beliefs of a certain segment of population are quite resistant to facts, regardless of the danger to their health.

One very important, and perhaps overriding risk is a reason to vaccinate as many people as possible and as quickly as possible.  This is the possibility that the virus could mutate not just to make it more contagious, but more deadly.  The virus could mutate to start killing (rather than maiming) younger people.  This is what happened with the Spanish Flu -- a mutation made it much more deadly in the second wave.

Of course, one further argument against the conspiracists: it's been reported that infections are much reduced in those who were vaccinated versus those who remain  unvaccinated, and they are being vaccinated against the Coronavirus, not the Flu. 

So, don't wait, go out and be vaccinated.  Protect yourself, your family, and your fellow citizens.

Barry Lynn