Forecasting is a humbling experience

There's nothing quite like feeling optimistic and hopeful only to be told you're wrong. Forecasting can be a very humbling experience for those who take it seriously. With all of today's technologies and past experiences, you'd think that we should have the weather pinned down by now. Sadly, nothing is farther from the truth. There are just too many factors, too many ways for things to go wrong that prevent forecasters from getting a forecast exactly right. The fact that we get anything right at any time is something to behold in and of itself. The atmosphere, the Earth, just has too many processes intricately working together to all be analyzed and scrutinized within any of our lifetimes. We're talking about trillions of calculations (no exaggeration) alone for just a 36 hour forecast.

Computers, however, can only do so much, and are as flawed as the humans who make them. I say all this because there are times when we, as forecasters, will make a forecast (say for just 24 hours out) and feel so very confident about everything coming together, only to find out that we couldn't be more wrong. What kind of person would choose a profession where they have to constantly be reminded of how little we know about the world?

Dedicated and humbled people, I would imagine. Now I'm not putting our profession up on a pedestal by any means. There are far more humbling and dedicated people out there I'm sure, but I wanted to clarify these points because there are so many people out there who blame meteorologists or forecasters for "screwing up" a forecast, when it's really just telling us something we already know. Try not to judge us too harshly. We're doing the best we can with what limited resources and technology we can.

I've been going through a bad slump of failed forecasts lately so I guess this has been weighing heavily on my mind. For the last several weeks it has seemed that the models will not agree on what the weather will do for two specific cities I'm forecasting for, and it can be really difficult to ascertain what will happen until after it has already occurred. I don't base my forecasts solely off of what the models tell us (as that would just be the computer forecasting, without human intuition and experience), but they do provide a good "jumping off" point, or basis for comparison.

Well anyway, I've rambled on far enough. I have yet another exam tomorrow that I need to be studying for. Ironically enough, it's for Numerical Weather Prediction (how the weather models work)!