THE WEATHER

12

|

07-2015

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WHICH WEATHER FORECAST FOR TOMORROW?

WEATHER MODELS: WHAT IT’S DOING AND WILL DO

Weather forecasting is based on models. Who makes these

models and what do the weather forecasters do?

W

eather forecasting isn’t an

exact science; there are

too many random factors

at play. But over the last

decades, the reliability of the weather

forecasts has greatly improved.

The main reason for this improvement

is the increase in computing power. To

forecast the weather, the forecasters

need to take into account a phenomenal

quantity of data describing the

meteorological situation at any given time,

to attempt to predict how it will evolve.

The data gathered at the moment is the

pressure, temperature, humidity, speed

and direction of the wind and precipitation

as well as the cloud conditions at all

levels. The sources are observations from

An article in the scientific magazine ‘Nature’ confirms the improvement in weather

forecasting in a graph.

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7567/full/nature14956.html

FORECASTS ARE IMPROVING…

By Sascha Burkhardt