First let's me qualify myself...I was a meteorology major for a few years back in the mid 90's. With that said:
There is very little chance in the foreseeable future that weather predicition will be 100% correct, no matter how fast the computer get
One of my faviorite quotes along this line:
Why is Forecasting so difficult?
Consider a rotating spherical envelope of a mixture of gases -- occasionally murky and always somewhat viscous.
Place it around an astonomical object nearly 8000 miles in diameter.
Tilt the whole system back and forth with respect ot its source of heat and light.
Freeze it at the poles of its axis of roation and intensely heat it in the middle.
Cover most of the surface of the sphere with a liquid that continually feeds moisture into the atmosphere.
Subject the whole to tidal forces induced by the sun and a captive satellite.
Then try to predict the conditions of one small portion of that atmosphere for a period of one to several days in advance.
This quote came from a government manual for the NWS. This quote doesn't even touch the lack of quality observations in the atmosphere along with the unkown physics involved with it all.
Yes...it has been improving over the years. Going into the 80's, the hits were generally 75% for 24 hours out, 50% for 3 days out, and just above a crap shot for beyond that. Going into the 21st centruy, it's generally running about 90% for 24 hours, 75% for 3 days, and 50% for 5 days.
Even after studying it for years, I'm still amazed that they can get it to nearly 90% for 24 hours off.
Slashdot Mirror
There is very little chance in the foreseeable future that weather predicition will be 100% correct, no matter how fast the computer get
One of my faviorite quotes along this line:
This quote came from a government manual for the NWS. This quote doesn't even touch the lack of quality observations in the atmosphere along with the unkown physics involved with it all.Yes...it has been improving over the years. Going into the 80's, the hits were generally 75% for 24 hours out, 50% for 3 days out, and just above a crap shot for beyond that. Going into the 21st centruy, it's generally running about 90% for 24 hours, 75% for 3 days, and 50% for 5 days.
Even after studying it for years, I'm still amazed that they can get it to nearly 90% for 24 hours off.
Congrats if you made it this far.
Ian Layton