The Weather Notebook: Forecast for the People

Forecast for the People
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Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow for the Mount Washington Observatory and this week on The Weather Notebook, Montana producer Barrett Golding has been following the path of weather data as it flows from it's source, one of the many daily observation points, to the regional weather service, and to its final processing place, an ocean of information known as the National Weather Service:

"I'm Jeff Demago, chief of the mesoscale modeling branch. Part of the National Weather Service, here in Canton Springs, MD. Our center here in Washington is one of the international centers for collection and redistribution of weather observations. So, in a sense, any piece of weather forecast information that you hear either on the radio or television is based on information we provide.

We can take the current state of the atmosphere and march it forward in time to predict at some point in the future, at each of these gridpoints the value of temperature, wind, moisture, and pressure will be. Now, we can't predict the occurance of a tornado in a particular town 7 days in advance. We're lucky if we can give a warning 30 minutes in advance. So the computers provide guidance on the future state of the atmosphere and the local forecaster provides the expertise in the interpretation to turn that into a forecast suitable to the public."

Barrett: "My friends and I are cursing the forecast..continued sunny and unseasonably warm. Normally that would feel good in the middle of a Montana winter, except we have a ski trip planned and haven't had any serious snow for weeks. But I know there's an army of meteorologists out there to tell us that though it's clear and mild now, we can always hope for inclement weather tomorrow."

Thanks to Weather Notebook correspondent Barrett Golding. Our show is funded by Subaru.