What makes weather so hard to predict?

Referring to the amount of times that the forecast for last weekend's southeastern snowstorm changed, what made that storm particularly difficult to predict?

  Topic Science Subtopic Meteorology Tags meteorology forecasts forecasting challenges
2 Years 1 Answer 632 views

Jason Tanner

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Answers ( 1 )

 
  1. Caveat:  I'm not a climatologist or a meteorologist.

     

    That being said, I think the answer is basically "deterministic CHAOS".  The "weather" (a rather vague but all-encompassing notion to begin with) at any given time and place is a function of a huge number of variables, many of which are themselves poorly known, and the dependence of a given aspect of "weather" (e.g. temperature) at one place and time has a dramatic dependence on some of those variables, such that an infinitesimal change in the variables causes a qualitative change in the "weather" then and there.  By "infinitesimal" I mean "smaller than the uncertainty in our measurements".  

     

    Generally speaking, the more specific the location and time for which you're trying to make a prediction, the more uncertain your prediction will be.  There are some predictable small-scale differences, such as "microclimates" in places like the downwind side of mountain ranges, where it may only be a mile between a "Mediterranean" average climate and a "rain forest" one.  But that's "on average".  It's relatively easy to calculate the net energy budget of the Earth and conclude that we're storing up more heat than we used to; it's a lot harder to predict where that extra energy is going to go, and when, and what the results will be. 

     

    One thing that's been well understood for decades is that when the energy budget shifts in different regions, many of those chaotic dependences are going to get nudged out of what used to be a stable pattern, resulting in more unpredictable weather (i.e. chaos) and more "extreme" weather events.  That's what we're seeing now.  It will get worse.  Whether it eventually gets better depends entirely on us.  

    UTC 2022-01-26 05:22 PM 0 Comments

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