For hundreds of years, observations of the atmosphere have been a starting point for efforts to understand and predict its behavior. Most recent improvements in technologies such as; instrumented aircrafts, radar, satellites, computers, and weather balloons has made meteorologist’s weather forecasts easier to predict, as well as more accurate.
Extreme-weather forecasts have improved even more over time. People who once received on average five minutes' warning before a tornado, and no warning at all 74 percent of the time, now get 13 minutes' warning on average, and receive some warning 69 percent of the time.
Ben Johnston, teaching assistant for AOSC 200- Weather and Climate, discussed the importance of technology to weather forecasting.
Flash flood forecasts now come, on average, more than an hour before the floods themselves. Much of the improvement comes from a new generation of radar that went into service in the early 1990s. Unlike older radar technology, which basically bounced off storms, today's Doppler radar units can peer through fronts and measure things such as wind speed. The improvement of radar and other weather-sensing technology complements the continual upgrades to computers. Organizations such as NOAA, and NASA are constantly conducting meteorological studies to help improve weather forecasting.
Citizen reporting of weather events can be highly accurate when carried out by trained observers, however, when carried out by untrained observers accuracy is less. Twitter weather reports are dominated by untrained experts, but the information presented is still helpful to observe.
Ben Johnston gave his opinion on social media and forecasting. In his opinion, social media hasn't changed weather forecasting.
