Your Weather, 2026

[Carol Dee]

 

[flowerbug]

the forecasts are crap recently. they must be using AI on LSD... for the past several days for this week they had chances of rain most every day and night during the week. now they decided that the rain might be here tonight but not the rest of the days during the week. when i'm trying to figure my schedule out for the week it would be nice if they could at least hit the ball somewhere in the ballpark... *grump*

the most important points to me are if it will rain and if it will be frosty, cold or warm. they've also not been very close on the frosty, cold or warm. like had they had yesterday's forecast right i'd have been able to mow today instead of yesterday and the day before. an extra weekend day for other things would have been nice. lalalalala... i'm spoiled.

not the end of the world, or perhaps a first world problem...

 

[digitS']

The NYTimes reported last Summer that 17% of those at the NWS had lost their jobs. One hundred new openings happened then after the nearly 600 had been terminated.

It was as if no planning went into this — storm within the service.

What I have noticed is the constant change in the forecast. Beyond about 48 hours, there are changes changes changes! Drama yeah. It's like, "we will just check with the guys a couple of hundred miles upwind and just stay with that for a week."

 

[ducks4you]

When I was working on a teaching certificate some 20 years ago I took a weather class. One of our assignments was to plot the weather prediction 5 days out, then 4 days out, until day OF (same source.)
I have thought about this many times. I have concluded that 5 days out is generally correct OR it is Way off.
If you learn to read the clouds you can guarantee that "mare's tails", Then those clouds that look like cotton pulled apart, altocumulus clouds--all over the skies means a guaranteed storm some 24 hours later.
There are Many factors that go into forecasts, including fronts, winds aloft in the stratosphere, where the ice clouds live, Cirrus, that interplay. Depending upon which winds, cold fronts and warm fronts are the most powerful, Those will prevail.
ALSO, the Jet Stream often gets stuck in a wet period or dry period, and it takes a very strong system to break this up, hence long periods of drought.
Just so you know there IS some science involved, and, just like in the law, it depends upon the interpreter.

 

[flowerbug]

they've gradually gotten better through the years but at times of the most change (in the spring and fall) it seems to be more iffy. recently just not even...

 

[heirloomgal]

Today was nice, windy with a chance of summer.

 

[flowerbug]

we had our bit of rain for the moment, may get some more tonight. this forecast was actually accurate at last... but it took them at least six changes (that i saw) during the previous week to get there.

 

[Dahlia]

We have been having hotter than normal temps this week, but tomorrow it starts cooling off again followed by the clouds rolling back in. I've been enjoying the heat as is not something that happens a lot here!

 

[digitS']

@Dahlia , we have some of that Spring heat.

Some years, I am complaining about you sharing your "June Gloom." Those years, we don't seem to have any warm, sunny weather until July. And, it's early May! We should have more of these days so it must mean that the cooling will stay on the west side of the Cascades.

Ya know, @flowerbug , if I lived near the Great Lakes, I would pay attention to Environment Canada. Maybe you do, even with so much of your weather coming from the south and west. The Canadian weather service radar shows a lot of what is happening in the US as well. Living less than 100 miles from the 49th parallel border, I resent our WS not showing us farther into Canada. So often, our weather is coming from the northwest. Boop! It just kinda shows up.