Advances in Weather Prediction

Weather forecasts from leading numerical weather prediction centers such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) have also been improving rapidly: A modern 5-day forecast is as accurate as a 1-day forecast was in 1980, and useful forecasts now reach 9 to 10 days into the future (1). Sensitivity to initial conditions varies greatly in space and time, and an important but largely unsung advance in weather prediction is the growing ability to quantify the forecast uncertainty by using large ensembles of numerical forecasts that each start from slightly different but equally plausible initial states, together with perturbations in model physics. Improvements in river forecasting, leveraging better weather forecasts, can provide great value predicting flooding from hurricanes (8) and other sources.

Source: science.sciencemag.org