Mayor Threatens Fines for Wrong (Weather) Forecasts

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60365-2005Feb28.html

Moscow Leader Wants Greater Certainty in Predicting Weather

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 28, 2005; 2:00 PM

MOSCOW, Feb. 28 -- Weathermen of the world, beware!

The mayor of this city, where in winter -- stop the presses -- it tends to snow a lot, is furious that weather forecasts are sometimes inaccurate. And he has proposed fining the weather service every time it gets a forecast wrong.

"We are paying and would like to receive a quality product," thundered Mayor Yuri Luzhkov at a meeting last week of the city government during which a number of forecasters sat in the audience. "Instead of that you are giving us ."

The mayor's hot flash was prompted not by a failure to predict snow, but by the Moscow Weather Bureau's inability in January to say exactly when a blizzard would arrive and how much snow it would dump on the city. On Jan. 28, the city endured its heaviest snowfall since record-keeping began in the 19th century, and local public services were unable to cope.