Even a week plus into the future…
In: Earth Science
In very broad terms, wind, rain, and temperatures are “caused” by the rotation of the Earth, by the Sun’s energy hitting the Earth and warming it up, by and geography (mountains may “push up”, redirect, or block winds, for example).
Geography doesn’t change much from day to day / year to year, and the Earth’s rotation and orbit around the Sun, and the Sun’s energy output, all of these are “predictable” from year to year. We do get the seasons after all, it’s more or less predictable.
Also, there’s an understanding of clouds and how the bigger storms (hurricanes etc.) are affected by heat and humidity and winds, and we do have radar and satellite systems that can track clouds and rain-fall, so basically it’s possible to make predictions as far as where a large cloud or a large storm system may move, and how it will affect the weather in its path.
So part of it is a matter of perspective: you go outside and see a clear sky and just sunshine, but for example the astronauts on the space station can see that big storm coming towards you for days before it finally gets to you. A satellite or radar view from above, combined with multiple weather stations sharing information about the weather that they “see” locally, basically you can calculate globally where the big storms / weather fronts are, and how they’re going to move for the next few days, and thus where it’s going to rain and so on.
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