WEATHER: Forecasting The Election
![Illustration: Paper Ballots for Israeli Election by Laliv g - Own work [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/599529_580ea4273c1a473292037f7c25d91c52~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_564,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/599529_580ea4273c1a473292037f7c25d91c52~mv2.jpg)
Illustration: Paper Ballots for Israeli Election by Laliv g - Own work [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia
"Tell no one we have spoken, for all shall reveal itself in due course.”
Crown Prince Henry II in “Ever After: A Cinderella Story"
One has the feeling that whether we speak about it or not, we're going to find out what happens on Election Day by sometime on Wednesday. And if we wait a few more months, we'll also know whether this coming winter will be rainy just like the last one.
Actually, the next two weeks look essentially similar: some meandering of the temperatures up and down — just like the poll numbers — but nothing really changing over time. Election Day should be pretty nice. However, if we head up to the upper atmosphere (at 500 mb), we'll find a dramatic decrease just before Election Day. This means the upper air circulation associated with the Indian monsoon is weakening and moving away from our area, and our skies can now start to produce puffy cumulus clouds as a prelude to fall and winter.
Interestingly, there are plenty of rumors about this coming fall and winter weather. We heard that it's going to be very rainy in the next few months from those who prefer to reveal what will be instead of to wait until it actually happens. The American forecast model actually shows warmer and drier weather than usual, but the more reliable European model shows a fairly rainy fall with temperatures a bit warmer than usual. December is forecast to have quite heavier-than-normal rain amounts with normal temperatures. January could bring in normal temperatures and normal amounts of rain.
The predictions are also out for this Tuesday's election — and they show no change from the previous election result.
After all, the price of housing is still quite high — although none of the parties seem to speak about this. The folks down south have been living with the occasional and not-so-occasional missile attack for the last several years, so why should more people vote for the government than before? Perhaps then it was poetic justice that our Prime Minister had to be rushed offstage because of such an attack. "You can't stop us," they probably shouted from somewhere in Gaza.
Of course, the true response would be: we don't try to stop them because we'd rather live — or let someone else in the country live — with the situation than take concrete and difficult steps to stop the attacks.
While focused on its reelection, one wonders if our government ever stops to think that you can only "buy" quiet for so long before you just can't anymore. Like a Ponzi scheme that can only be sustained for so long, I worry that the payoffs will one day be too small to maintain the quiet, and then it won't be safe for our future Prime Minister to campaign in Tel Aviv either.
As for the rest of us, we'll be like all those Ponzi scheme losers. Out of luck, maybe — but hopefully not 'out of life' as well.
Dr. Lynn is a lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Earth Sciences Department. He is also CEO of Weather It Is, LTD, a company that specializes in reducing weather risk. Click here to read more of this writer’s work in The Jerusalem Herald.
