Takes a lot to get your weather forecast
A lot of effort goes into the weather forecast for your area. Data has to be collected from many sources, including weather observations from many locations, weather balloons, buoys, radar and satellite images need to be analyzed. Today, the computer does a lot of the heavy lifting, but it was not always this way. Before we can predict the weather for your area, we need to know where the weather comes from and to do that we have always looked to the sky.
Air flows from one place to another and as it does so it carries its temperature, moisture and other atmospheric properties with it. All of our weather is just the product of air moving from one place to another. When areas of different air properties meet they often battle for dominance and this air battle is called a weather front. Along this battle zone or front is where most of our storms are formed. Another source of moving air is called convection and this occurs when different parcels of air are heated and grow into clouds and sometimes showers and thunderstorms. Once a storm forms, either the frontal storms a thunderstorm or even a hurricane, it must get additional moisture so it can continue to grow.
Early weather forecasting relied on 鈥減ersistence鈥� or the assumption that storms past would dictate its future behavior. In our area, generally, weather moves from west to east so that rain in the Midwest on Monday would mean rain in our area on Tuesday. Sometimes this would be true, but often times this theory was not possible to incorporate all the changes that are constantly taking place and affecting the storm in the Midwest. Maybe it would weaken, slow, down, speed up or intensify. Many factors could affect the storm on its journey. It could even change direction or dissipate. This form of forecasting was also of little use for weather that was out west or even in Canada, the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico and might affect us in a few days. We simply did not have the tools to make reliable forecast beyond a few hours or a day or two.
Today蘑菇视频 weather forecast has improved dramatically and generally is very accurate for a few days and at least a good indicator of the weather for a week at a time. Hurricanes out in the Atlantic are now fairly accurate as to where, when and how severe they will be when they make landfall. Arctic cold fronts making their way across Canada are also tracked with much reliability, allowing us ample time to ready for these events days in advance. While longer term forecasts still have a way to go, the scientists at the Climate Prediction Center are constantly improving and the 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks give us a general idea of what蘑菇视频 ahead.
Today, the meteorologists use a process called Numerical Weather Prediction that relies heavily on computer models using quadrillions of calculations to produce the models that forecasters use. Even with all the computing power there is still a need for the human touch to help tweak these forecasts for your local area.Our understanding of events such as EL Nino and La Nina also help get a better understanding of what is going on across our planet蘑菇视频 vast open oceans which play an important role in coming weather events.
As I write this, the smoke from out West is forecast to return along with a nice warm up which should last into early next week. Increased chances for some needed showers are also forecast and then a turn to cooler weather next week.
Longer term, the outlook for October is for temperatures above normal and rainfall about normal. The three-month outlook is for a 40% chance of above normal temperatures and rainfall to be normal. Let蘑菇视频 see how we do.