In researching this project I was amazed to find the many books
on this topic. After going through much information and reading an
enormous amount of writing on weather forecasting I can only come to
one conclusion that when all is considered the best forecasters can
only give an educated guess of what is in store for weather. Through
the many means at their disposal, such as satellites, ships at the ocean,
infrared, radio, and radar transmissions even with all of these
techniques no prediction is 100% accurate.
One question that I asked myself was "when was the first weather
forecasting ever done?", I found out that in 1863 in Britain there was a
united forecasting system headed by Captain Robert Fitzroy. Captain
Fitzroy would send ships around Britain to warn people of storms and
such. However, he was often wrong and criticized and therefor
committed suicide. Since then there have been many other services,
but the largest one currently is the National Weather Service. The
National Weather Service gives predictions for all of the world through
satellite imagery for all countries. Also in recent history many local
television and radio stations have made private forecasts for small
areas.
Meteorologists are people who interpret the weather, the reason I
don't say predict the weather is because even though all forecasters
have the same information and data at their fingertips, the way that
they interpret what is in front of them can be different. Meteorologists
receive information from various sources, but their interpretation of
the data determines the accuracy of their prediction.
Someone might ask, "If forecasters have so much information on
a particular area; how could they predict a flawed forecast ?" The
answer to that question lies in the fact that any one of a number of
weather conditions may ruin a forecast. A fast cold or hot front
moving in, an unexpected flow from the ocean or a cold wind may
change the whole days forecast.
There are many different materials and devices used by local and
government services to predict the weather. Some of these devices are,
Radar which is actually sound waves, which bounce off clouds and
give location of storms this way.
Another such device is actually a variation of radar called
"Doppler Radar" actually can give the exact location of a storm within
a kilometer. However, Doppler Radar is not used so much for everyday
forecasting, but for tornadoes and very large storms. The way Doppler
Radar works is almost the same as regular radar with one advantage, it
also can measure the speed of an object or storm, which makes its
prime usage tornado watching.
Some other techniques have been adapted to forecast the weather
such as infrared beams, which even at night can show where the
intensity of a storm is. And of course there are other instruments used
to predict the weather such as the barometer and the thermometer.
Of course all of these inventions have proven helpful for
forecasting weather, there was still one problem. The main problem
was communicating. The reason for this was that if the forecasters
were to send letters to each other every time there was a storm, their
counterparts would not learn of a storm or tornado for days! The
solution to this problem began with the invention of the telegraph.
The telegraph provided a simultaneous message carrier to
anywhere in the country. Later the radio was invented and then that
was used, but still something else was needed a system to transport
footage as well as sound.
The solution to that was solved by the Internet. The internet is a
connection by phone lines which can deliver photos and sound
instantaneously.
The next breakthrough in forecasting was the satellite. A satellite
would be launched from Earth and then would take video and photos
of the world and send back to Earth the footage, thereby being able to
show storms coming from the ocean just at the first stages.
The first weather satellite "T.I.R.O.S. 1"the world an infrared
view of the world. However T.I.R.O.S 1 was not specifically built for
forecasting but rather to study clouds. The U.S. government later went
on to build 7 more T.I.R.O.S.'s.
The first weather satellite truly devoted to weather forecasting
was E.S.S.A. 1 which provided detailed data pictures, and its
successor, E.S.S.A. 2 provided pictures from a regular wide angled
lens of the world. Furthermore even though E.S.S.A. and T.I.R.O.S
gave birth to a new generation of technological breakthroughs by
toadies standards the information they gave were fuzzy and
incomplete. Later there was a new satellite built in the image of
T.I.R.O.S. called I.T.O.S. which stood for Improved T.I.R.O.S.
operating system.
Recently there have been many local forecasting stations
popping up all over the world, a big difference from the once exclusive
N.W.S.(national weather service).
Lately most towns now have non-governmental forecasting stations,
which provide weather information for the suburban locations and
areas such as ski resorts, and holiday vacation spots, one thing the
N.W.S. does not do.
The National Weather Service has been in operation for over 100
years since 1870 and has kept all records of weather, thereby making it
possible to make an average for the day with decent results.
In Closing I can only surmise that much research been done on
predicting weather accurately, millions of dollars have been spent, on
satellites, radar, and weather bureaus. Meteorology, which is the study
of weather is an exact science, yet because it deals with the forces of
nature, the essentials of a weather prediction, will never be entirely
accurate, or will they...?
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