I had to laugh when I looked at today’s long-lead precipitation forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center.

Those little splotches of color are forecasts. All that white is what the forecasters call “equal chances”, which basically means they have no idea other than historical climatology what might happen. In other words, it could be wet, or it also is possible that it might be dry. Or maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the middle.

Long lead forecast, April 19 2012

Forecasting is hard.