Satellite Glitch Might Mean Weather Forecasts Not That Accurate

Some satellite data isn't coming in due to a glitch,
but at least this visible satellite image of
a nor'easter in New England, taken this afternoon,
is up to date.  

Those computer models that help meteorologists make weather forecasts depend upon a wide variety of data, including information from satellites.

Some of that information has stopped coming in due to some sort of glitch reports the Capital Weather Gang, the weather blog for the Washington Post.

It's unclear how weather forecast accuracy might decline, if at all, but it seems the longer the glitch goes on, the worse it will get. But nobody's expecting forecasts to be completely boffo, or totally wrong.

A lot of wags say weather forecasts are always screwy anyway, and that meteorologists are paid good money to be wrong all the time, but that's just not true.

I hate to be defensive, but forecasts, at least a day or two out, have a better than 80 percent accuracy rate, which is great for such an inexact, complicated science.

According to one researcher, the National Weather Service is generally the most accurate, and the least accurate are television meteorologists, but they do a pretty good job, too.

Still, as Capital Weather Gang and Eric Holthaus in Slate note, several National Weather Service glitches lately are troubling. Some computer systems go down, and on a couple occasions prevented warnings of severe weather from being released to the public quickly.

In one case in May, a strong tornado in upstate New York went unwarned. Luckily, nobody was killed.

Most of the data is coming in as of Thursday afternoon, says the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, or NCEP, so there's varying opinions over weather forecasts will become less accurate or not this week.

But just be prepared for a bit more uncertainty for awhile, just in case.