How accurate is the weather forecast in your city?
Niko Kommenda and I learned that NWS just began doing gridded assessments of forecast accuracy. We got the data and mapped of how many days into the future they get within 3°F of the observed high temp.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
We made a tool that lets you look up the accuracy of the temperature forecast in your town.
Interestingly, forecast accuracy varies depending on whether it's hot or cold outside, so we included a comparison of warm vs. cool months.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Weather forecasts have gotten a lot better. Today's 7-day high temperature forecast is as accurate as the 3-day forecasts of the 90s.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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I wrote to my regional nws office because radar doesnt even show some precipitation in my area. Found out "we cant see below 10000 feet" in my area because of radar placement and mountains. My county is yellow amid the green here.
Yes! I can’t tell the difference between two degrees outdoors but I sure notice when the plants didn’t get the forecast rain.
Not to mention the number of times we have paralyzing levels of snow turn out to be nothing.
This is 100% correct. Lived in OKC for six years and the weather knowledge elsewhere does not begin to compare. Like, I could confidently go on camera during a tornado warning here in Kansas and do at least as well as our local folks (this may be a little hyperbole).
Steve Martin played a meteorologist in LA Story who prerecorded his forecasts, and that more more than 30 years ago. These days, the movie would have to have him going two weeks out for the jokes.
One of those little yellow patches in central Pennsylvania happens to be Centre County - home of Accuweather. As a resident, I would say 48 hours is a big stretch.
I don't know because for a whole week they were telling us it was finally going to rain. Friday Saturday Sunday rain all day!
Woohoo! Nope. No rain. Not even a nice, respectable pattern of afternoon thundershowers.
Very interesting.
Tangentially related, I've lived in 6 different states spread out over 3 of those 4 broad regions.
Everywhere I have lived someone said "You know what they say about the weather in [our state]. Wait a few minutes and it changes."
the weather forecast is absolute garbage here, but I live in the middle of nowhere, in a very geographically isolated area, so storms either pass around us or they get stuck here for days longer than predicted
Cool stuff! I wonder how it would change if you used median error instead of mean. I suspect that in the early part of the forecast, the mean might be skewed by a few really bad misses (particularly in the cool season).
Also, if you're using URMA for your truth, I think you're probably getting the max hourly temperature, not the high temperature. Those two things are close, but could be off by a degree or two. (The same thing applies for the low temperature, but it's probably worse for the low.)
has this changed with climate change at all? I could swear that the 5-day forecasts 10 years ago held up better than they do now, but I was in the same 3-4 day zone at both points in my life
That's the point: climate change is making weather modeling software, which was built with decades of relatively steady climate data, increasingly inaccurate and useless.
The software has only gotten better. The computational capabilities is only getting better. But that's not useful if your datasets are outdated.
For example, you can equip a smartphone with a 50 mp camera, but if the lens is shit, you'll just be getting high resolution Barbara Walters filters.
I have Carrot weather and I keep changing what source it uses, trying to find something that can at least tell me (roughly, within reason) when it’s gonna rain. All of them are trash.
