Why is Weather so hard to Predict?

Question

It makes me mad because they hype theses storms that barely ever happen like they say. I don't mean a month in advance being able to predict weather, in my mind that's impossible, but why can't it be like Back To The Future? They have "Doppler Radar" showing storm systems so why am i not able to look at my watch and say it's going to rain in 10 minutes?

Answer 1

I totally agree.I really love thunderstorms and they build but then just pass and I do get mad.

I think it because weather has to be measured on a very large scale.Everything has to take in to account.Temp,wind,humidity,solar radiation,topography of the land etc.If one small thing changes,weather it be that the system come to a small building or a large mountain,and the wind is slightly different,it will completely change the outcome and they will have to run all the models again and it will change it.

Every little thing,weather man made or natural will completely change how the weather system behaves.

Answer 2

Hype is not science. Hype is used to sell things. If you make something more interesting with hype, some hope that more people will pay attention. With more people paying attention, some people will make more money. As a weather forecaster, I don't like it when hype is used to increase the interest in weather.

Many forecasters like to use the forecast discussion as a way explain why a certain forecast is made, how confident they are in their forecast, and what may also cause their forecast to go bad. This is usually written the weather discussion and can be easily found in the link below. However, sometimes they use a lot of terms that the public may not understand. I would suggest that you try to read the weather discussion for your area with the forecast to decrease the chance of any "surprises" and to decrease the chance of you getting caught up in all the weather hype.

http://wxweb.meteostar.com/disc/

To answer your other question, a radar only shows the returned energy that has bounced off something in the air or on the ground. It could be anything, but it is usually water droplets in the air that is big enough for it to reach the ground. But you must be aware that it may be something else. Also, radar will only show what is going on at the moment or something in the past.

You will need to also understand if it is showing precipitation, the forecaster will need to know what is causing it in order to predict what will happen anytime in the future. If you make the wrong assumption, and that does occur, your 10 minute forecast may be off some or even completely wrong. Like any human, we do make mistakes as the atmosphere is much more complex than most people realize.

I always say that Mother nature has a way of throwing a wicked curve ball just to see a forecaster swing and miss whenever she thinks the forecaster has become too confident of his foecasting skills.

Answer 3

I predict next summer will be warmer than next winter. 99.999999999999999999999% chance I will be correct. I predict putting more insulation in my house will make the house warmer if I continue to burn the same amount of wood as I did before I insulated it. I predict putting insulation in the atmosphere (green house gasses) will cause the temperature to rise if the sun continues to put out about the same amount of energy every year. Not all that hard to figure out how predictions in the future can be correct by looking at what has happened in the past.

Answer 4

The weather is ALWAYS changing. Doppler Radar is live, almost, give or take 10 mins. It don't predict the weather it shows the rain. When u look at the radar it maybe 10 mins behind. the rain may have dissipated before it refreshes itself.

Answer 5

becuase there are infinite factors that influence it