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ABYLONIANS TRACKED CLOUDS FOR HINTS OF STORM-AUGURING HALOS. The Chinese developed calendars based on predictable weather events. Aristotle’s Meteorologica contained multiple theories about weather phenomena—some accurate, many not—and was in use until about 400 years ago.
For thousands of years, the most basic weather tools we humans have had are our senses. Even as weather-predicting technology developed, such devices as the rain gauge, barometer and thermometer only enhanced what our eyes, ears and aching joints told us—it was wet, cold or hot. What we couldn’t always predict well was what the next day would be like. But that’s changing—and quickly. “Te last 10 years have been a
transformative era in weather forecasting, with forecasts becoming more descriptive and more accurate further into the future,” says Chris Vaccaro, director of communications at the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Tese changes have huge benefits way
beyond figuring out whether we need umbrellas. “It has especially affected predictions on high-impact weather events,” Vaccaro explains. “Today, we’re better able to predict destructive events, like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, and do so further out in time.”
From
satellites … Te main reason for better predictions? Rapid satellite technology progress. Satellites have been around for decades, but they’ve become ubiquitous—
and more sensitive. “Forecasting into the future begins with obtaining current observations and sampling the atmosphere,” Vaccaro says. “Trough improved observations, largely thanks to the incoming and current generation of satellites, we can measure wind and humidity on land, water and air, providing a wide swath of data.” Te satellites see what’s already
happening—but more holistically. “All these data points add up to literally billions of observation points each day, around the globe,” he says. Tose billions of data points don’t do
anything for us without the increasingly powerful supercomputers that help the NWS crunch the numbers. “Tese observations are processed by computer models that are run by supercomputers,” Vaccaro explains. “Tese models have the mathematics and dynamics of the atmosphere figured out and calculated. Te supercomputer processes trillions of calculations per second to be able to take the current state of the atmosphere and then project out 10 days or longer.” Human forecasters analyze this information to produce a forecast the NWS issues.
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