Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 2 June 2017

Science Says: Weather forecasts improve, under the radar

SETH BORENSTEIN next week and even later
AP Science Writer in the month, meteorolo-
WASHINGTON (AP) — gists said.
Make fun of the weather- The improvements are
man if you want but mod- most noticeable during
ern forecasts have qui- Atlantic hurricane season,
etly, by degrees, become which starts Thursday.
much better. Hurricane forecasts were
Meteorologists are now as twice as good last year
good with their five-day than they were in 2005,
forecasts as they were with when the National Hur-
their three-day forecasts ricane Center predicted
in 2005. Both government the paths of 28 storms, in-
and private weather fore- cluding Hurricane Katrina.
casting companies are ap- Then, predictions where a
proaching the point where storm would be 36 hours
they get tomorrow’s high out were accurate within
temperature right nearly 80 97 miles. Last year, they
percent of the time. It was were about that accu-
66 percent 11 years ago, rate 72 hours before a
according to Forecast- storm hit.
Watch , a private firm that In the 25 years since Hur-
rates accuracy of weather In this Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 file photo, waves wash over a roller coaster from a Seaside ricane Andrew “we’ve
forecasts. Heights, N.J., amusement park that fell in the Atlantic Ocean during Superstorm Sandy. gained two days of pre-
That may not always be Associated Press dictability for track fore-
appreciated, especially if cast,” center forecast op-
your livelihood depends to be more precise. soaked in the stands. Ryan used to get people erations chief James Frank-
He may yet be satisfied,
on getting rain and snow Last week, the forecast for telling him he was never lin said.
amounts, and timing, just though, because forecasts Washington was afternoon right, so he would chal- And while coastal residents
are continuing to improve.
right, all the time. “They thunderstorms on Thursday lenge them to bets on how may want the hurricane
don’t know what’s going They are already good so the Washington Nation- good his forecasts were. center’s so-called cone of
enough for Major League
to happen,” complained als moved their game from He’d offer to donate $5 to uncertainty to shrink even
Washington taxi driver An- Baseball, which is now 4:05 p.m. to 12:05 p.m. The someone’s favorite charity more, former hurricane
able to move game times
tenhe Lashitew. He makes game got in — the Nats for every blown forecast if center director Rick Knabb
more money when it rains around based on fore- won — and the storms ar- they’d donate just $1 for said it’s gotten so small
casts so you have a much
or snows, so he wants them rived on schedule not too every one he got right. No it’s a problem the other
smaller chance of getting long after the regularly one took him up on the of- way. People look at just
scheduled start time. fer. the forecast track of the
“That would have been Better forecasts are partly eye of the storm and they
unheard of 20 years ago,” the result of more observa- trust it. But then they don’t
said retired Washington tions taken in the air and heed warnings about how
television meteorologist oceans and better under- dangerous conditions can
Bob Ryan, the first nation- standing of how weather extend for more than 100
al on-air weatherman on works. But it’s mostly bigger miles beyond that line on
Lipstixaruba@outlook.com NBC’s “Today” show. “If we and faster computers that the screen and they get in
did in the 1500s what we put it all together in com- trouble, said Knabb, now
do now, we would have plex computer models that an on-air analyst at The
been burned at the stake simulate the weather that Weather Channel.q
as witches and warlocks.” may be coming tomorrow,