Could you imagine having a career you worked hard to obtain, and in your profession, you learn the ins and outs of it? Many jobs all around the world have unforeseeable events where it doesn’t matter how much you may know, the unforeseeable may change the outcome of your job. And with the weather the way things are these days, well, it’s quite unforeseeable.
At least when you give the wrong weather forecast on accident it won’t lead to losing your job – especially if you’ve been reading the forecast for a long time. That’s what you’d think. However, these weather officials would say otherwise thanks to an ‘inaccurate’ forecast.
On Monday, two top Hungarian officials were terminated after a weather forecast for a significant occasion in the nation ended up being ‘inaccurate’.
The occasion was a firecracker show to pay tribute to St. Stephen’s Day, an occasion every year facilitated in the Hungarian capital of Budapest on Aug. 20 to praise the birth and history of Christianity in Hungary. The show ordinarily draws more than 1,000,000 observers.
Paving the way for the occasion, Hungary’s National Meteorological Service called for a 75-80% chance of downpour during the event start time of 9 p.m. on Aug. 20. Out of safety concerns for the public and workers, this prediction prompted the firecrackers show to be rescheduled for Saturday, Aug. 27.
However, the storms that were predicted by the forecast never occurred, and the downpour passed over as it often does in some parts. The top of Hungary’s National Meteorological Service Kornelia Radics, and her representative Gyula Horvath were subsequently terminated for giving ‘inaccurate’ weather reports.
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Suspicions in regard to the premise of the officials’ terminating have circled, and rightfully so. In a meeting with Hungarian media source Telex, Horvath expressed that he was not involved in any way with the decision-making connected with the St. Stephen’s Day firecrackers.
“I have been working in meteorological measurement and observation for 22 years, always to the best of my ability,” he said. “Hearing this was painful, but since there is nothing I can do about it, I have accepted it.”
The National Meteorological Service announced on Monday, referring to the firings of Horvath and Radics as “unacceptable” and “groundless”.
The weather conditions had a tremendous effect on St. Stephens Day festivities over 15 years ago. As indicated by the Hungarian media source Origo, a fierce storm hit Budapest during the light show over the Danube River on Aug. 20, 2006.
The weather conditions caused 500 injuries and five fatalities, including a 12-year-old child and a man who was killed by a falling tree, a lady who had a heart attack, and two individuals whose boat overturned during the storm.
“While forecasting has improved by leaps and bounds the past few decades, it still is and may never be perfect,” said the FOX Weather Forecast Center. “This is especially true with severe weather where subtle changes in the atmospheric conditions at small scales can have a big impact on the type of weather that ultimately occurs. We simply don’t have the technology to model the atmosphere at that fine of detail.”