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<p>Why did all the experts get the hurricane season outlook so wrong?</p> <p>Twelve forecast teams predicted an average of 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four major. Yet this season, which ends Saturday, saw only 13 named storms, including two mediocre Category 1 hurricanes.</p>

Is the snowstorm back on for this week? I think so, in moderate form. What looked like a monster storm initially, then a storm that was pushed farther out to sea, is now coming back around this morning. So, what happened? Yesterday, I read a theory about a problem with the computer models. It was presented by Meteorologist Henry Margusity from Accuweather. Basically, the impending eruption of Mt. Redoubt in Alaska has diverted intercontinental flights.

We've all heard the complaint that politicians can be fair weather and change their minds depending on which way the political wind is blowing. But this week, weather and politics came together in a most peculiar way in Sacramento. First, the governor, by executive order, decreed that the state will have new standards for low-carbon motor vehicle fuel to help combat global warming. Then he announced as part of his State of the State that he wants to build two new dams because Sierra snowpack runoff is happening earlier in the year. Why? Global warming. This, of course, all happened...

KABUL -- Afghanistan's weather office is still strewn with rubble from the day in 1996 when Taliban supporters sacked it and put an end to weather forecasting, a science they considered sorcery. The main floor of the Afghanistan Meteorological Authority is filled with smashed equipment and charred sheets of paper, the remains of 100 years of weather records. Abdul Qadeer, head of the country's weather forecasting agency, explains that he is still reeling from the Taliban decree that he could deliver today's weather, but not the forecast for tomorrow. "They were allergic to the word 'prediction,' " Qadeer said of...

IBM has signed what it hopes will be its biggest supercomputer deal ever: a contract for up to $224 million to improve the National Weather Service (news - web sites)'s forecasting technology. • Ultraportable notebook roundup • Find Web-hosting solutions • Tech Update goes inside ERP • Go wireless at ZDNet  Sign up for the free ZDNet News Dispatch:     (CNET Networks Privacy Policy) IBM Global Services will operate the 2,572-processor machine, to be installed in an IBM facility in Gaithersburg, Md., IBM and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA) said Friday. By July 2003, the system will completely take...