Why is the weather forecast all day wrong?

In the morning, the rain is shining, the humidity is wet, the weather is always so poor. And despite the many efforts of meteorologists throughout the decades, it is very difficult to completely predict the weather.

While scientists are respected for finding and solving many of the complex and vast problems of the universe, the work of meteorologists is always regarded as a joke. Although we have succeeded in getting people up to the moon, or predicting when planets are aligned, but how can we still predict the exact weather?

Saying that, actually the current weather forecast is much more accurate than before, and that's entirely due to the efforts of meteorologists for decades. So that we can be prepared for extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, etc . But to accurately forecast the weather is a completely different matter. .

Accurate forecasting of weather is still a "difficult" problem for meteorologists.

Modern meteorologists solve the weather forecasting problem by using formulas as well as mathematical models. This method requires the support of supercomputers, along with a large amount of ground, air and ocean observation data. Of course, a meteorological station cannot undertake such a large amount of work, but requires thousands of stations all over the world to join together. Data can be collected from temperature, humidity sensors, through commercial airplanes, or floating lifeboats. The balloons and satellites will take on the task of collecting information on the upper atmosphere.

In total, more than a million different weather data are collected daily. The next part is of supercomputers, using complex algorithms to predict how the climate will change, based on the information gathered. In the US, the super-computer weather forecast is located at the National Meteorological Center (NCEP). The weather results analyzed are the basis for the weather forecast programs broadcast on TV as well as on Radio throughout the United States.

You might think supercomputers never make mistakes, but no, no matter how strong they are, weather forecasting is always a very complex challenge. Because the forecasting algorithms need to take into account many different phenomena, each phenomenon is influenced by many variables and influencing factors. For example, computers need to consider how the temperature of the earth changes when the sun shines on, how the air pressure difference creates the wind, etc . Even, they still must take into account the earth's movement in the solar system as well as the earth's rotation around its forecast results. And when any variable, even the smallest, abruptly changes, it can cause the weather forecast to be completely skewed.

A butterfly flapping its wings in Asia can create storms in Europe.

In the 1960s, a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz gave a definition describing this problem, entitled 'Butterfly effect' , to mention that a butterfly flying in Asia could make The weather in New York changed completely. Today, Lorenz is known as the "father" of Chaos theory , a set of theories that describe highly complex systems (such as weather forecasting), where only A small change in the initial conditions may result in the final outcome being completely altered. Therefore, there is a limit on the accuracy of the weather forecast , and the error is set by Lorenz in about 2 weeks.

Modern meteorologists use advanced equipment and techniques to try to minimize possible errors. For example, the technique is often used in the current weather forecast as 'combinatorial prediction' , including many weather forecasts with slightly different starting points. If all the weather forecast results are the same, the weather will tend to be stable, otherwise the trend is 'unstable'.

Doppler radar system used in meteorology.

Another vehicle used by meteorologists is the Doppler Radar . This system needs a radio transmitter out of the sky, and will bounce back when encountering obstacles in the atmosphere. The incoming clouds will have different feedback signals than the clouds far away from the radar. The feedback signal will be processed by the computer, thereby giving relevant information such as atmospheric cloud density, wind direction, wind speed .

Thanks to modern technology, meteorologists were able to forecast the weather more accurately than ever before, especially for short-term forecasts. For example, the weather information within 12 hours is highly reliable. However, due to the influence of chaos theory, meteorologists will never be able to forecast the weather completely accurately , and this is why the sudden storms happen. can cause damage to many people without warning. So you should never forget to bring your umbrella or raincoat every time you leave the house, even if the weather forecast program has announced that today is clear.