Weather forecast

Weather forecast

There are two ways for weather forcasting:

Short-range forecasting

Meteorologists can make somewhat longer-term forecasts (those for 6, 12, 24, or even 48 hours) with considerable skill because they are able to measure and predict atmospheric conditions for large areas by computer. Using models that apply their accumulated expert knowledge quickly, accurately, and in a statistically valid form, meteorologists are now capable of making forecasts objectively. As a consequence, the same results are produced time after time from the same data inputs, with all analysis accomplished mathematically. Unlike the prognostications of the past made with subjective methods, objective forecasts are consistent and can be studied, reevaluated, and improved.

Another technique for objective short-range forecasting is called MOS ( Model Output Statistics).This method involves the use of data relating to past weather phenomena and developments to extrapolate the values of certain weather elements, usually for a specific location and time period. It overcomes the weaknesses of numerical models by developing statistical relations between model forecasts and observed weather. These relations are then used to translate the model forecasts directly to specific weather forecasts. For example, a numerical model might not predict the occurrence of surface winds at all, and whatever winds it did predict might always be too strong. MOS relations can automatically correct for errors in wind speed and produce quite accurate forecasts of wind occurrence at a specific point, such as Heathrow Airport near London. As long as numerical weather prediction models are imperfect, there may be many uses for the MOS technique.

Short-range weather forecasts generally tend to lose accuracy as forecasters attempt to look farther ahead in time. Predictive skill is greatest for periods of about 12 hours and is still quite substantial for 48-hour predictions. An increasingly important group of short-range forecasts are economically motivated. Their reliability is determined in the marketplace by the economic gains they produce.

Long-range forecasting

Extended-range, or long-range, weather forecasting has had a different history and a different approach from short- or medium-range forecasting. In most cases, it has not applied the synoptic method of going forward in time from a specific initial map. Instead, long-range forecasters have tended to use the climatological approach, often concerning themselves with the broad weather picture over a period of time rather than attempting to forecast day-to-day details.

There is good reason to believe that the limit of day-to-day forecasts based on the “initial map” approach is about two weeks. Most long-range forecasts thus attempt to predict the departures from normal conditions for a given month or season. Such departures are called anomalies. A forecast might state that “spring temperatures in Minneapolis have a 65 percent probability of being above normal.” It would likely be based on a forecast anomaly map, which shows temperature anomaly patterns. The maps do not attempt to predict the weather for a particular day, but rather forecast trends (i.e., warmer than normal) for an extended amount of time, such as a season (i.e., spring).

Prior to the 1980s the technique commonly used in long-range forecasting relied heavily on the analog method, in which groups of weather situations (maps) from previous years were compared to those of the current year to determine similarities with the atmosphere’s present patterns (or “habits”). An association was then made between what had happened subsequently in those “similar” years and what was going to happen in the current year. Most of the techniques were quite subjective, and there were often disagreements of interpretation and consequently uneven quality and marginal reliability.

Innovative new procedures

In the last quarter of the 20th century the approach of and prospects for long-range weather forecasting changed significantly. Stimulated by the work of Jerome Namias, who headed the U.S. Weather Bureau’s Long-Range Forecast Division for 30 years, scientists began to look at ocean-surface temperature anomalies as a potential cause for the temperature anomalies of the atmosphere in succeeding seasons and at distant locations. At the same time, other American meteorologists, most notably John M. Wallace, showed how certain repetitive patterns of atmospheric flow were related to each other in different parts of the world. With satellite-based observations available, investigators began to study the El Niño phenomenon. Atmospheric scientists also revived the work of Gilbert Walker, an early 20th-century British climatologist who had studied the Southern Oscillation, the aforementioned up-and-down fluctuation of atmospheric pressure in the Southern Hemisphere. Walker had investigated related air circulations (later called the Walker Circulation) that resulted from abnormally high pressures in Australia and low pressures in Argentina or vice versa.

Since the mid-1980s, interest has grown in applying numerical weather prediction models to long-range forecasting. In this case, the concern is not with the details of weather predicted 20 or 30 days in advance but rather with objectively predicted anomalies. The reliability of long-range forecasts, like that of short- and medium-range projections, has improved substantially in recent years. Yet, many significant problems remain unsolved, posing interesting challenges for all those engaged in the field.

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