B.J. Herbison wrote:

I just looked at the weather.com information for Fitchburg, MA.
The report shows the current temperature (actually, the 7:52 PM
temperature) as 81 degrees. Looking at the hourly forecast, the 9 PM
temperature is predicted to be 71 degrees, 68 at 10 PM, and so on.

I've checked the weather reports for a few local towns several times
today, and the situation was always the same: The current temperature
has been much higher than the series of temperature predictions in the
hourly forecast. And today isn't unique -- I've seen that happen many
times with errors in both directions.

My question is: How can this happen?

I can understand how distant forecasts can be off, but shouldn't the
current temperature be a strong factor in short-term temperature prediction?

You should probably ask them - but I don't know if you'd get a response.

I thought automated forecasts of that sort adjusted to some extent to current
conditions - at least for the short term. Maybe they don't. Programming
something like that would not be difficult - some weather providers actually
have their forecasts updated automatically based on trends of radar &
satellite images - though I think we are still a long way from that being
as good as a human for that.


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