Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
I think I did a probability class years later and the teacher was saying how they should have looked at the history of those weeks and they probably would have moved the games for colder, snowier weather. It was super warm in 1988 and statistically that wasn’t totally surprising I guess.
(I have no idea how accurate that is btw, and it could be pure hindsight bias in action!)
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They did look at historical weather forecasts and meteorological reports. The original plan was for the 88 Games to be held the last week of Feb and the first week of March because those were the optimum weather weeks.
However, February sweeps are the last 2 weeks of February and it was decided to move the Games up to coincide with that and maximize ad revenue.
Unfortunately the meteorologic data said there should be little difference. Ooops!
The organizing committee also looked at historical data and knew that the winters were going to be drier and warmer. That's why they had invested in new snow making equipment, stock piled snow and covered the Olympic Oval. The winds were the killer.