Respect the Polygon | Against the Rules with Michael Lewis

what's your biggest fear

I'd say the biggest fear is some

something a mistake that I would make

that would damage my credibility to

where people would not listen to me when

there's a tornado down

James Spann meteorologist maybe

Alabama's best known person aside from

some football coaches

he's all over TV talking about the

weather especially when the weather

might kill you this is a tornado

emergency but the cities of Tuscaloosa

and Northport and the campus of the

University of Alabama

[Music]

James is one of those people who's never

really had a job because he found his

calling

he once stayed on the air as he watched

a tornado make straight for his own home

pleading with people to see the risk if

you're just joining us this is James

Spann with Taylor serrallo mainly

checking on my wife uh we've got she's

up she's okay and she's in the tornado

shelter

okay go ahead Taylor I'm sorry

I was put on this planet to mitigate

loss of life when there were tornadoes

flying around here and I have to be very

careful in what I say and what I do not

just on the air but on social media

and in real life

to build trust with his audience James

goes to incredible links he's published

a children's book called Benny and

chipper prepared not scared he spends

time in dollar stores talking to people

because the people who shop in dollar

stores are also the people who live in

trailer homes the sort of homes that

tornadoes obliterate

he memorizes the names of alabamians

who've died in storms

people he might have saved there's lots

of them

on a single day back in April 2011 a

line of tornadoes in Alabama killed 253

people

I know their stories I know they're

family members I've talked to many of

them and it's very motivating for me and

uh that's my main job in life it's to

make the warning process better with

severe weather

he's doing all he can to warn people

yet people still don't understand what

he's saying

I'm Michael Lewis

welcome back to against the rules where

we explore unfairness in American Life

by looking at what's happened to various

characters in American Life

this season is all about experts

today we're going to explore the strange

thing that's happened to experts not all

experts a certain percentage of them

the experts who think and speak in

probabilities who use data to forecast

the likelihood of this or that coming to

pass

the experts who can never be perfectly

certain and who risk our wrath because

we love thinking in absolutes

thank you

James Spann has been making and

explaining weather forecast for the

better part of half a century

in that time it's kind of incredible how

much has changed so so here here's a

1978 forecast partly sunny tomorrow with

a chance of showers in the high of 80.

that's it so today under the same

circumstances I'd say we'll have a

pretty good bit of sunshine between nine

eleven o'clock after 11 o'clock uh rain

is likely between 11 and 1. the chance

of any one spot getting wet during that

two-hour Windows about 75 it's going to

rain about a half inch in most places

there could be some Thunder most of that

should be out of here by 2 30 after

three o'clock you're good to go the sun

breaks back out temperatures should Peak

around 80 at one o'clock and falling

back into the 70s by four o'clock that's

the difference in what we can do now

compared to 1978 it's the difference

between daylight and darkness if you go

back to the beginning of your career

were you encouraged to speak to the

audience that way like we don't know

that much about this this could be wrong

oh no no no they don't want you to say

that I mean goodness but you know back

back in the 70s this was when TV news

was coming of age and Eyewitness News

you know and they wanted to be this

god-like figure you know on television I

I I was scared to communicate

uncertainty because that wasn't

encouraged we were the news the Evening

News the Ron Burgundy newscast

weather forecasts are inherently

uncertain

the where the when the how much

with the current data we have the best

you can do is Judge the odds

but the odds have gotten much more

accurate over time back when James Spann

was a young meteorologist he knew very

little but tried to sound like he knew a

lot

now that he knows a lot he works hard to

explain what he doesn't know

you're giving the audience more

information and more nuanced information

so it's more demanding on the audience

right it is and you know

I hear this all the time I just want to

know if it's going to rain tomorrow

and they want a yes or no they want that

deterministic forecast

deterministic as in perfectly

predictable which is something the

weather still isn't

when James Spann started out the 10-day

forecast was no better than just

guessing now it's a lot better

but maybe the most obvious Improvement

the one people really should notice has

been in forecaster's understanding of

the kind of weather that kills people

in 1978 we were using 1957 era radar and

the old black and white printouts of

radar looked like somebody barfed on a

piece of paper and so warnings in 1978

let's say we had a tornado down we

didn't really know where it was we had

an idea so warnings were issued by an

entire County tornadoes even the big

tornadoes are small and counties are

huge so here you are warning an entire

County to get into your safe place and

do something most people didn't need to

do anything where today we know

literally within maybe a few city blocks

of where the tornadoes located well so

if I'm a consumer of tornado warnings I

get a much more precise warning and I do

I get a more advanced warning am I

likely to get it get more more time to

prepare for this thing

yes they have average lead time here is

about 12 to 15 minutes and the average

lead time back in the 70s was zero to

three minutes uh so we've come a long

way and we don't use counties anymore we

use small small segments of counties

geometric shapes polygons anybody that

knows James Spann I've said this over

and over respect the polygon and if

you're in it you do something respect

the polygon if you're in the polygon you

respect the polygon respect the polygon

every storm today will be in business

respect a James span Super Fan did a

remix of his famous phrase

the polygon

foreign

[Music]

but it also raises a question why

respect the polygon instead of just

respect what I say it's weird

if the James span back in 1978 had been

as accurate as James span is now

he'd have endured hail storms of

gratitude

hurricanes of appreciation

tornadoes of all

but that's not the weather he now lives

with

Hello friends this is James Spann it's

time to read some Mean Tweets and thanks

to all of you for sending in the Mean

Tweets I really appreciate them for my

heart

you caused the people in the state

millions of dollars by your