Weather forecasting technology has made great strides in the last twenty years, says NASA meteorologist Sam Hardy. But, he cautions, “It’s still like gambling. You think you’ve got all the right numbers and circumstance look just about right, when BAM, a storm brews up from nowhere or the wind gets up to incredible tricks.”
Sam has been a NASA weathercaster for the past 15 years, and he says probably the biggest improvement in weather technology is not the span of satellites that now crisscross the globe high above, but rather the intricate algorithms that can digest betadata and megadata to such an extent that the predictions of weather patterns they spit out are 25 percent more accurate than anything in the past ten years. And, adds Hardy, the algorithms are getting better all the time.
But will technology eventually defeat the vagaries of weather forecasting?
“Don’t hold your breath” says Sam Hardy.
