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The long-awaited upgrade to the US weather forecast model is here
Weather forecasters need a ton of knowledge and a fair bit of experience with local weather patterns to do their job well. They also need a good forecast model. These computer models take in measurements from weather stations on the ground, satellites in orbit, and balloons in between and then simulate the physics of weather forward in time a few days.
For the first time in about 40 years, the guts of the US model got swapped out for something new today. The upgrade brings us a new "Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere" (or FV3) dynamical core, which simulates the basic atmospheric physics at the heart of this endeavor, a change that has been in the works for a while.
The new core had its origins in simulating atmospheric chemistry but ended up being adapted into other models. A few years ago, it was selected to replace the old core in the US Global Forecast System model. And for more than a year now, the new version of the model has been running in parallel so its results could be compared to the operational model.
[...] The results have been a little mixed. The new core improves computational efficiency and allows some processes to be simulated at a higher resolution [...] But there have also been grumblings in the weather community over the past year about results that didn't seem so hot. For example, surface temperatures have been biased low in some situations, throwing off forecasts.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:50PM (9 children)
Wait, let me get this straight: actual people designed, wrote, and implemented an actual mathematical model program that they could understand and audit?
Derrr, why didn't they just use AI? AI is the solution to all problems! And you don't have to do all that messy work of actually understanding anything. If they had used AI we would all be eating cake right now! And then they would also be able to control it from their smart phones because... uh.. smart phones!
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:59PM (4 children)
Skynet doesn't predict the weather. It makes it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:35PM
Takyon knows what's up.
(Score: 4, Funny) by fyngyrz on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:58PM (2 children)
I am altering the weather. Pray I don't alter it any further.
--
You know that little voice in your
head that keeps you from saying things?
I should probably get one of those.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:04PM (1 child)
Sounds like a political directive in action to me.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @01:34AM
You may laugh, but I have some odd suspicions that someone is either asleep at National Weather Service or someone has been doctoring the numbers a bit. I live in Albuquerque and this past spring has been really odd. Really odd. In fact, it has only been in the last few days that we are starting to see what I would consider to be consistent summer weather. The really odd part about it is that when I check with the NWS their forecasts the past several weeks have been way off. Way off. Like the time I checked the local weather on the web and it said that it was 80 degrees and sunny outside, but immediately going outside myself I see that the sky is overcast, there is slight rain, and the temperature couldn't have been any higher than mid-60s, at the most. Or the other day when we had high winds come through late in the afternoon and the temperature that night dropped down to, at best, somewhere in the high 40s; in fact, I wouldn't be all that surprised if we had actually dropped down into the 30s that night. While Albuquerque weather can be a bit odd at times, I find it remarkable that the NWS can't seem to get a good handle on the forecast. I'm beginning to wonder why.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:57PM (1 child)
It's worse : They actually did year-long extended testing against real-world data to check the validity before pushing the app update.
Those software guys will never get a career anywhere else.
And I won't get my tornados-and-monsoon-blizzard forecast in Socal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:26PM
Does it do "Code Red" alerts?
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:11PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:07PM
If you only eat half of it you do get to eat your cake and have it too.