ElI5 How do meteorologist know that this tropical wave carries a 10% chance of forming. Why not 5% or 15%?
In: Planetary Science
Computers models run thousands of simulations of near future weather and the data from those simulations determine the probability of any specific weather event.
Wikipedia has a bit more details https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction
One important thing to understand about weather forecasts is what “10%” means. It tells you that of the simulations run, the forecasted thing occurred in 10% of simulations. By the same token, it might be the case that something else happened in 30% of simulations. This is why you can have a 60% chance of rain and then go outside to a perfectly sunny day.
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