Fishy forecast

During a weather forecast in October 1987, British meteorologist Michael Fish told viewers that "a woman rang to say she'd heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, don't worry," he continued, "there isn't." Brushing aside the amateur's forecast with a chuckle, Fish promised "sea breezes" and a "showery airflow."

Britain was promptly hit by 120 mph winds which ripped up 300 miles of power cables, plunged a quarter of the country into darkness, blocked 200 roads with fallen branches, downed 25 per cent of the trees in Kent and stopped all rail traffic in the south for twenty-four hours. An ambulance at Hayling island was hit by a yacht floating across the road and the Meteorological Office called it the worst hurricane since 1703.

Fish's spokesman later explained: "It's really all a question of detail." In fact, technically, Fish was correct. It was not a hurricane, but an intense North Atlantic depression. "We don't get hurricanes in the West Country," one observer explained. "We get hurricane force winds."

Pat Robertson & Hurricane Gloria

In 1985, with Hurricane Gloria headed toward the east coast, televangelist Pat Robertson promptly went on the air to pray. "In the name of Jesus," he declared, "we command you to stop where you are and move northeast, away from land, and away from harm."

Incredibly, the hurricane did in fact begin to head northeast. Robertson's claims to have changed the course of the hurricane were met with considerable scorn, however, particularly in Long Island - which lies to the northeast of Robertson's native Virginia and was devastated by Gloria after she changed course.

Pat Sajak: Weatherman

Though Pat Sajak got his start as a weatherman, it was hardly the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. "Most of the things I've done in broadcasting, I never had any intention of doing," he later confessed. "I did the weather in Nashville and Los Angeles, and to this day I couldn't tell you what a cold front is!"

Quanzhi's note: a very good excuse for our meteorological students if professor asks about the definition of cold front or something else!

Court astrologers

According to Marco Polo, Kublai Khan maintained some 5,000 court astrologers, whose duties included the hazardous task of weather prediction. Why so many? Guessing wrong, he explained, could lead to "early retirement."

Quanzhi's note: I have never heard this fact before! Thankfully I have no interest to be a meteorologist in future at the moment.

These pieces of anecdotes are citing from www.anecdotage.com. Surprisingly only a few meteorlogy-related entries were found, I guess that is because meteorlogist has made too much wrong predictions so people have got used to it. Well, I'm not blaming meteorlogists ;-) Weather forecast is indeed a challenging topic and we have made significant progress on it over the last a few decades.