I feel like for the last 20 years I’ve felt like tomorrow’s forecast is very accurate, 2 days from now is an educated guess (if it says it’s raining, it’ll rain, but not sure what time of day) and 3+ days is unknown.
What advancements have we made in meteorology and what are the current limitations for weather forecasting?
I’ve definitely seen my phone be very accurate in forecasts for the current day like “in 16 mins, it’ll rain for 22 mins and then stop for an hour”
In: Planetary Science
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” — Niels Bohr
The “in 16 mins, it’ll rain for 22 mins” thing isn’t a forecast. It’s a radar observation that there is a rain cell moving toward your location that’s 16 minutes away and 22 minutes thick.
There are many measurements so that better models can be produced. However, there are places where the forecasts are almost always right (= Hawaii) because the weather is almost always the same as yesterday. Other places are hard to predict because of a combination of wind patterns and terrain, like the Mason-Dixon line area.
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