Like every other are of science, and life in general for that matter, computers are important to modern meteorology. Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere and one thing computers can do is generate model output quickly and reliably. Models such as hurricane forecast enable meteorologist to gain extraordinary insight into the upcoming weather. This is especially important in predicting severe weather in time to let people get out of harm’s way before the storm hits.
Predicting the weather is not always easy, although using computers in meteorology can help in many ways. The changes in the weather happen according to the complicated rules, but never exactly. This makes it impossible to be sure of what the weather is going to the next, although there are basic patterns, and using these rules in forecasting usually helps somewhat.
The accuracy of numerical weather predictions depend primarily on two factors. First, the more data that is available to a computer the more accurate its results. Second, the faster the speed of the computer the more calculations it can perform and the more accurate its report will be. In the period from 1955, when computers were first used in weather forecasting to the current time, the percent skill of the forecasts has improved from about 30% to more than 60%.
Computer can perform a series of calculations in a few hours that would take a meteorologist his or her whole lifetime to finish. In numerical weather predicting meteorologist select a group of equations that describe the conditions of the atmosphere. This set of equations can never be complete because even a computer is limited as to the number of calculations it can complete in a reasonable time. These equations are fed into the computer. After a certain period of time, the computer will print out the changes that might be expected if atmospheric gases behave according to the scientific laws to which they are subject. From this printout a meteorologist can make a forecast of the weather in an area in the future.
Using computers in meteorology help weather forecasters analyze the atmosphere by drawing weather maps separately for each of several atmospheric levels. Then the computer can put it all together and generate a prediction. A prognostic model run gives three dimensional date describing the future state of the atmosphere as determined by its algorithms. We need computers for doing the huge volume math and tracking required for predicting the weather. It is estimated that it would take over a hundred thousand people doing the figuring manually to perform the calculations done by the supercomputer of the National Center for Environmental Prediction.
There are many use of computers in meteorology, for example, in the numerical weather prediction falls under a group of numerical turbulence models. Other example is the record of the speed and direction of wind at the different levels and in different locations, the barometric pressure in all of these places, along with temperatures and moisture content for each starters. Computers in meteorology have done a huge pile of legwork and helped us find greater insights into weather.