Why is the weather forecast still so hit and miss?

Question

I know they’re a lot better than they used to be, but it can still vary a lot! Are we likely to get any better at predicting the weather?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

The weather is a huge system with many many many moving parts that interact with each other. Tiny changes to the starting condition of a simulation of such a system have huge impact on long term outcomes. We attempt to make an accurate prediction, but once things have moved and changed, you need to do a new one.