The Weather-people are Always Wrong...Maybe Not Always

I'm not the first to admit that we can be wrong when we tell you the forecast on air. But keep in mind while many science fields there is a right and a wrong way of doing things, with weather, forecasting is nowhere near an exact science, and thus we will not always be 100% accurate on the forecast. One of the main reasons we can be a bit off on the forecast is because we don't have an accurate idea of what's going on across the entire atmosphere to begin with. We take current observations and current data in account when we are forecasting, if the current data is wrong, we can't accurately tell where storm systems will move. So if everyone on the Earth would take weather data and send it into a huge supercomputer, we'd have a much better idea of a starting point.

I like to compare it to directions - if someone gives you directions to a location, it's easy to get there, but if they give you directions from an unknown starting location, how are you going to get there? So the more accurate of a starting location you have, the easier it is to get to where you are going. Same story with weather, the more accurate of a starting location (or state of the atmosphere/surface & upper air observations) the more accurate of a forecast we will have. But even if we were to have everyone on Earth send in all this starting weather data, we still would be completely in the dark with systems coming in from the oceans.

That's changing however. Currently there are several ways to take observations out at sea, many of them being with weather buoys. The National Data Buoy Center has several of these planted all around the world to take current observations at the surface, so we can get a a better idea of what kind of systems are going to be moving onshore. Their website is extremely interactive, you can click on any of the buoys for the information. As you can tell, there are several areas where there are no buoys, and thus no data. The big change in ocean observations is coming via jet. Here's a look at NOAA’s Gulfstream IV aircraft. This jet is known best for taking weather observations in Atlantic hurricanes, but now it's going to be taking weather observations over the Pacific Ocean to help improve winter storm forecasts.(Credit: NOAA)

Here's what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says about this new addition into gathering current conditions:

"The highly specialized twin turbofan jet will be stationed at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan through February before repositioning to Honolulu in March. From these locations, the aircraft will be tasked by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction — a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service — to fly into data sparse regions to collect information such as wind speed and direction, pressure, temperature and humidity. This data will be sent via satellite to global operational weather forecasting centers — and fed into sophisticated computer forecast models.
“These flights will help us better observe and understand the current state of the atmosphere over the Pacific, where most of North America’s weather originates, in order to better predict future conditions across the U.S. and Canada three to six days in advance,” said Louis Uccellini, Ph.D., director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, Md.
These computer model improvements will play an essential role in meteorological support for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in addition to more precise precipitation forecasts along the U.S. West Coast and points further east.
NOAA incorporated the Japan-based missions into its annual Winter Storms Reconnaissance program in early 2009 — flying 332 flight hours and logging miles equivalent to circling the Earth five times. Prior to 2009, missions were flown from Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast. By expanding the reach across the International Date Line to Japan, NOAA is essentially pushing farther upstream to observe areas of interest with greater lead times.
These missions showed significant positive impact to global numerical weather prediction models, increasing both accuracy and lead times for high-impact weather events. For example, model forecasts of precipitation amounts improved, on average, 10 to 15 percent.
The high altitude, high speed NOAA Gulfstream IV is based at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center, located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. "

So hopefully we'll get a little better at forecasting those winter storms further out in the forecast.

Keep warm today!

~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka