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Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

theatlantic.com

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Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#11

Post by LoSboccacc »

chewz wrote: post #10

Just follow few models for a couple of weeks and you will notice how inaccurate the weather forecast is.* I do follow ECMWF and ICON and a bit of OpenWeather forecast and the differences in forecasted temperatures are often 2-3 degrees C. And everything with a horizon over 72 hours is just numerology. (OpenWeather showed -19C in early days of Feb just 2 days ago, today it is -2C). Now a model is just a model (I had s…

In Italy forecast are so unreliable they cannot predict rain in the evening from the morning.

I don't know if it's because current climate change is throwing off models but short term forecast accuracy is terrible and I'm recently acutely aware of that since I switched to public transport for my commute.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#12

Post by tda »

chewz wrote: post #10

Just follow few models for a couple of weeks and you will notice how inaccurate the weather forecast is.* I do follow ECMWF and ICON and a bit of OpenWeather forecast and the differences in forecasted temperatures are often 2-3 degrees C. And everything with a horizon over 72 hours is just numerology. (OpenWeather showed -19C in early days of Feb just 2 days ago, today it is -2C). Now a model is just a model (I had s…

The windy.com site is really useful. It is the only way I know to get the ECMWF forecasts for free. As far as I know all the AccuWeather and similar spyware apps use the freely available but inferior GFS model.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#13

Post by chewz »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #11
chewz wrote: post #10

Just follow few models for a couple of weeks and you will notice how inaccurate the weather forecast is.* I do follow ECMWF and ICON and a bit of OpenWeather forecast and the differences in forecasted temperatures are often 2-3 degrees C. And everything with a horizon over 72 hours is just numerology. (OpenWeather showed -19C in early days of Feb just 2 days ago, today it is -2C). Now a model is just a model (I had s…

In Italy forecast are so unreliable they cannot predict rain in the evening from the morning. I don't know if it's because current climate change is throwing off models but short term forecast accuracy is terrible and I'm recently acutely aware of that since I switched to public transport for my commute.

I know. I had been tending large garden (roses and lawn) in my friends house in Toscana this summer. And I had been looking for a rain everyday :-) and observing the change in forecasts and acctual result.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#14

Post by saagarjha »

YokoZar wrote: post #8
saagarjha wrote: post #4

> In 2009, a back-of-the-envelope study estimated that U.S. adults check the weather forecast about 300 billion times per year. That's every single adult in the United States checking the weather four times a day . A bit more than I would have expected…

This number probably includes things like swiping to the leftmost home screen on your phone to see the weather widget at the top. When it's that easy you can often check the weather unintentionally.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have a weather complication on my watch–it's probably grabbing the weather every hour or so to keep it up-to-date.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#15

Post by OkGoDoIt »

I’m sure it’s easier to predict weather in some places versus others, but in San Francisco I find the weather forecast to be wrong more often than not. I’m often told it’s currently sunny or raining when it’s the opposite. And forget about accurate high temperature predictions for tomorrow. At this point I don’t know why I even bother checking.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#16

Post by neuronic »

nindalf wrote: post #9

This is an interesting example of an article that talks about gradual improvements in our lives that we take for granted at this point. It's strange because most articles are about dramatic deterioration. For example, it's unlikely we will read articles about the increase in % children who are vaccinated against basic diseases. It was 22% in 1980, 88% in 2016. Far more likely is reading reams of text devoted to the (…

> [...] most articles are about dramatic [...]

This small snippet of your comment in combination with knowledge about click/ad-based revenue for most outlets is really all you need to make yourself aware of nowadays.

Drama is what drove gossip for millennia and with the advent of media it began to drive sales. Doesn't matter if book, TV show or news article. It's all entertainment.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#17

Post by ttsda »

tda wrote: post #12
chewz wrote: post #10

Just follow few models for a couple of weeks and you will notice how inaccurate the weather forecast is.* I do follow ECMWF and ICON and a bit of OpenWeather forecast and the differences in forecasted temperatures are often 2-3 degrees C. And everything with a horizon over 72 hours is just numerology. (OpenWeather showed -19C in early days of Feb just 2 days ago, today it is -2C). Now a model is just a model (I had s…

The windy.com site is really useful. It is the only way I know to get the ECMWF forecasts for free. As far as I know all the AccuWeather and similar spyware apps use the freely available but inferior GFS model.

There's a few places you can get ECMWF from, but usually your state meteorology institute will use it, even if it's not clearly advertised. (In Portugal they use ECMWF together with AROME)

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#18

Post by lotsofpulp »

nindalf wrote: post #9

This is an interesting example of an article that talks about gradual improvements in our lives that we take for granted at this point. It's strange because most articles are about dramatic deterioration. For example, it's unlikely we will read articles about the increase in % children who are vaccinated against basic diseases. It was 22% in 1980, 88% in 2016. Far more likely is reading reams of text devoted to the (…

I don’t think using outbreaks of a preventable disease due to stupid people thinking they know more than they do and causing harm to society as a whole is overly dramatic. If anything, there should be more coverage about it so we can get laws passed to deny non medical exemptions.

Re: Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

#20

Post by caf »

chewz wrote: post #10

Just follow few models for a couple of weeks and you will notice how inaccurate the weather forecast is.* I do follow ECMWF and ICON and a bit of OpenWeather forecast and the differences in forecasted temperatures are often 2-3 degrees C. And everything with a horizon over 72 hours is just numerology. (OpenWeather showed -19C in early days of Feb just 2 days ago, today it is -2C). Now a model is just a model (I had s…

But from the user perspective there is huge difference between +1C tomorrow and -3C.

Really? I'd read those both as "near freezing, going to need a decent coat".

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