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There’s an old joke: The weatherman is the only job you can be wrong 50 percent of the time and still keep your job. Meteorology has since improved a lot since that old chestnut was funny, but it still highlights a very real truth about weather prediction: It’s hard as hell.
Meteorologists need to track and account for multiple different variables ranging from temperature, to humidity, to air pressure, and many more. These conditions can range drastically from place to place, even if they’re within a few miles from one another. So predicting what the weather will be is like trying to hit a moving target that’s also changing shape, size, and consistency all at once.
Currently, one of the best and most common ways to predict weather is with numerical weather prediction. This is a method of using equations to simulate the physics and fluid dynamics of future atmospheric conditions. It’s an incredibly energy and resource intensive way of forecasting, often requiring very powerful computers to assist in the modeling.