Why Numerical Forecasting Is Incredible

As much as I want the US government to help invest in US weather modeling, their lackluster GFS model is still an incredible achievement. The fact that we’re able to ballpark a forecast 7 days in advance is fairly remarkable, given that so many different things effect meteorology on a daily basis.

Is this ability one of the pinnacles of mankind’s achievements? Dr. Cliff Mass argues for this. He claims that, “Modern weather prediction requires the ability to simulate atmospheric effects on a vast range of scales ranging from the molecular to the planetary.” This ability requires such a keen understanding of not only the atmosphere, but that has to be intertwined with an insane amount of upper level mathematics.

What is crazy is that forecasts have only gotten better and better and better across the globe over time. “Major increases in skill at each time projection (up is better). But even more impressive is the fact that southern hemisphere forecast skill (the lower lines for each color band) now equals to the northern (which has much surface and upper air observations).”

The future of this looks even better, with the whole world investing in numerical forecasting. Though the US is still behind and isn’t as good as it’s European counterparts, weather models will only get better as time goes along. Looking at how complex the atmosphere is, I think I agree with Dr. Mass and his piece on this one.