Why are “100 Year” floods happening so frequently?
No, this is not a blog about climate change. I should have started with this question: “Why didn’t I pay more attention in my high school Statistics course?”
My teacher, Mr. Nelson, was correct. As he handed back one of my poorly executed assignments, he told me that a knowledge of statistics would serve me well later in life. At the time, I thought it would be a cold day in an eternally hot location before that ever happened.
Now, I often find myself pondering probabilities and statistics. No, I am not a DraftKings or FanDuel customer. I’m preoccupied by less risky, more mundane topics like: Is it just me, or are flights delayed and/or cancelled more frequently these days? Do personal/work emergencies really happen more often on Friday afternoons . . . before a long weekend? Or what are the odds of my picking the slowest moving supermarket lane again?
You know what I mean.
I could go on with such musings, but this really is a blog about 100 Year Weather Events. If you were like me, you probably assumed that 100 Year events (storms, floods . . .) are likely to occur only once every 100 years. Wrong! As the linked Wikipedia article describes, there is a >60% chance that “100 Year” events will happen more than once every 100 years.
Who knew?
OK, Mr. Nelson probably knew.
Is it just me or is there a decided chill in the air?
Peter has spent the past twenty-plus years as an acting/consulting CFO for a number of small businesses in a wide range of industries. Peter’s prior experience is that of a serial entrepreneur, managing various start-up and turnaround projects. He is a co-founder of Keurig.
