• Question: How do the Weather people predict the weather?

    Asked by cooper7r2 to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by vickers7r2, crunchiejelly.
    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi cooper! Weather prediction is pretty tough!! Actually even given all of our scientific advance it is still really difficult to accurately predict the weather. That is why forecasts are only good a day or two out from the current day. A lot of weather forecasting relies on collecting huge amounts of atmospheric data and using it to predict future weather. Predictions are made based on different atmospheric models, so the predictions are only as good as the model used to make them. Different models can be tested against historical data to refine them and make them better. But the Earth’s weather system is very complex so this is still a work in progress! Weather prediction is tough work!

    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Cooper and Vickers. There are a few different tools they use. One of the tools is satellite pictures – they can see where clouds are now, and where they are moving. They can also use instruments called thermometers and barometers to measure temperature and pressure of the air. All of those things give them a good idea of where all the hot air, cold air, and moisture is right now.

      We know the type of things that make air move. It moves from high pressure to low pressure. When it is warm it moves up, making low pressure, and when it is cold, it moves down, making high pressure. It picks up heat from warm oceans or land, and loses heat to cold oceans and land.

      When you put all those things together, you can predict what will happen next. Because it is so complicated, the predictions aren’t perfect. In particular, it is hard to tell exactly how fast things will happen. If you listen carefully to the weather reports, they say things like “The warm air moving from the East will get here sometime tonight”. They know that there is warm air, and they know that it is going to move, but not exactly how fast.

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Weather balloons and mathematical modelling I’ve been told…I think the others got here first in more detail though!!

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Maths lots of maths and predictive models… the met office in the UK is basically one big super computer… its all statistics.. which of course have margins of error

      The weather is just predictions so that’s why they get it wrong sometime!

    • Photo: Kimberley Bryon

      Kimberley Bryon answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      As Sara said weather prediction is quite difficult to do. We are definitely getting better at it though. You can predict how rain clouds will move by looking at wind speed and direction and the type of cloud tells you about whether it will rain heavily or not. From what I understand there seems to be a lot of complex modelling involved.

      I think it is pretty neat that they get it right most of the time.

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