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Are weather forecasting models getting better?


Coast

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

I've read over the years about the performance of weather models in the MOD thread and we still seem to get conflicting ideas about which models handle which scenarios/seasons the best and which models still struggle or remain 'poor' - or conversely, are seen as better for the UK.

I'm sure all the organisations that produce models around the World are spending considerable resources on improving and refining them, but are we seeing better performance or more accurate models and has shorter and longer-range modelling got better or remained the same in the last 5 or 10 years?

Do you think the validity of certain models has improved since you've been looking at them + doing your analysis and what seasons or set-ups do you think models do well in, or are poorer (and why).

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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Coast:

I just look out me window, eg. today: It's snowing, think it might be cold out there!

Probably not what you wanted - I'll shut up now!

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

I think they are getting better, and will continue to do so...But, so long as they remain flawed, there will always be plenty of ready excuses for the shortcomings of humans?

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Sure they've got better although I'm not sure the interpretation of them necessarily has. Accuracy has improved a lot over the past 20-30 years (at least with the major global models), I forget the exact stats but I remember reading we now have the modleling accuracy at day 5 that we did at day 3 20-30 years ago, an extra 2 days is pretty good I think considering chaos and all that.

Probably the most we can ever hope to gain in the future is an extra day or so before the laws of diminishing returns and chaos becomes too much. Then all the increases in computing power and data gathering in the world won't improve things significantly then.

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One thing that's increased though is the amount of amateurs who no offense barely have a clue how to interpret the models, they go around spreading their errored often biased forecasts/intepretations and when they don't come off people blame the models. The human element is still important and I think it requires a lot of expertise and experience to interpret the raw output from the models. You see the Met Office modifying the raw output all the time and even that has to be interpreted to be made into a forecast.

Edited by Bobby
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Posted
  • Location: Dunoon, Argyll Scotland
  • Location: Dunoon, Argyll Scotland

If anyone is interested my weather model experiment from 2011

And 2012

The models over the past decade have improved a lot and will continue to improve all the time.

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

In my opinion there is no doubt that the models have improved. Taking any time scale I would think and the longer the time scale then obviously the more that improvement shows.

ECMWF was set up in the late 70's/80's with the specific intent of improving 10 days to that of the then 3 days. How close they are to that target I do not know but it cannot be that far off.

There is of course then the human input or interpretation of the ouputs from the models. One comment suggesting that the forecast accuracy at short time intervals is no better does have some truth in it. Why? Because now the forecaster has little option but to follow, at least in part, what the model shows, say in the 12-24 hour time scale. There does seem little allowance for a 'back to basics' approach IF the forecaster feels the model has not got the right emphasis-sad that this seems to happen. Yet at longer time scales the senior man at Exeter is obviously 'tweaking' both Fax charts and text/spoken outputs as he should.

No I don't believe there is any doubt that forecast models have improved over the years.

Will they continue to improve?

Yes to that, very slowly in the 7-20 day time interval in my view.

Possibly more relaible longer term forecasting, 1 month to inter seasonal. The reason for that is the wider net being cast in professional circles into areas that were previously left to amateurs to attempt to show that there were links. One such case is the Stratosphere area which UK Met and other centres now accept has a part to play.

Interesting and I suspect frustrating times both for those trying to advance our understanding of the weather and those who receive the forecasts.

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