Election Day Weather and Political Forecast

The pundits and pollsters are calling the presidential race too close to call.  They suggest even minor issues could decide the outcome.

Why listen to pollsters and pundits, when you can get the prediction of a profession that has more experience forecasting than any of those folks?

 I am, of course, talking about weathermen. 

Democrats Secret Weapon

So let me describe the weather on election day and predict who will win the presidential election.  Hey...if we can forecast a rare storm like Sandy, an election should be child's play.

We are close enough to next Tuesday to have a good idea of what the weather will be like that day.   Here is the latest forecast by the National Weather Service's GFS Model for 5 PM on Tuesday (sea level pressure plus the amount of rain over the past 12 hours).  Very Benign Forecast!  Almost no precipitation over the U.S, except for guess where?  No matter, we are used to rain and everyone knows which presidential candidate will win this state. And high pressure dominates the continental U.S. and most of Alaska.

So what about the vaunted European Center model...the model that nailed the Sandy forecast 8-9 days before?  Here it is (solid lines are sea level pressure).  Same story, with high pressure over much of the U.S.  Unlike the pollsters, meteorologists really know how to deal with uncertainty and as explained in earlier blogs, we use ensembles (many forecasts) to do this. The ensemble systems of both the U.S. and European Center models are consistent with the high-resolution forecasts described above. 

Bottom line: good weather on election day over virtually the entire country.  

What does that imply?

Obama will win.

Authoritative studies by social scientists have shown that good weather is helpful to Democratic candidates.  One well-known study by Gomez et al. 2005 (link here) entitled The Republicans Should Pray for Rain:  Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections found that the estimated number of voters lost due to precipitation significantly benefits the Republican Party.  The study is based on an impressive array of polling and meteorological data, with careful statistical analysis.

They state:  "we have shown that bad weather may affect electoral outcomes by significantly decreasing Democratic presidential vote share, to the benefit of Republicans".   And they make a compelling case that weather has decided some presidential elections. 

There are, of course, other weather elements that are helping Obama, such as his attentive efforts to help the victims of Sandy and his apparent turning of New Jersey Governor Christie into a implicit supporter.  But these fade compared to the nationwide effects of benign weather that are predicted by our modeling systems.

Furthermore, the suppression of votes in the Sandy destruction area will not change the electoral college totals since damage has been mainly in overwhelmingly blue states, but will greatly increase chances Obama will win the electoral vote but not the popular vote.

Bad weather, good friends.

Obama can make plans for his inauguration, the weather gods appear to be in his corner.