How Weather Modeling Gets Better

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 15, 2015 @11:40PM from the rain-rain,-regress-to-the-mean dept.

Dr_Ish writes: Bob Henson over at Weather Underground has posted a fascinating discussion of the recent improvements made to the major weather models that are used to forecast hurricanes and the like. The post also included interesting links that explain more about the models. Quoting: "The latest version of the ECMWF model, introduced in May, has significant changes to model physics and the ways in which observations are brought into and used within the model. The overall improvements include better portrayal of clouds and precipitation, including a more accurate depiction of intense rainfall. The main effect of the model upgrade for tropical cyclones is slightly lower central pressure. During the first 3 days of a forecast, the ECMWF has tended to have a slight weak bias on tropical cyclones; the new version is closer to the mark."

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Re: Weather forecasting has a way to go by Anonymous Coward · 2015-08-16 00:48 · Score: 4, Informative

Weather often varies dramatically over small distances. It may be sunny at the studio and raining 1/2 a mile away where you are. Rain predictions are not 50% chance that a given spot will get an inch of rain. The prediction is that 50% of a large area will get a inch of rain. Big difference between those.