Meteorology, Weather & Prediction

What will the weather be like this afternoon? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? In the next century? How do weather processes work, and how do they affect larger climate processes? Research in the Mesoscale & Microscale Meteorology Division of the Earth & Sun Systems Laboratory points the way toward answers to each of these questions.

Although NCAR doesn’t issue official forecasts, our research and technology is used by operational forecasters—those who issue regular outlooks for the National Weather Service, Federal Aviation Administration, military weather services, or private industry. Making those predictions more accurate, and longer range, benefits humanity both physically and economically.

In addition to routine weather prediction, another important focus of NCAR research is prediction of severe storms, which can damage lives and property. For example, more than 1,000 thunderstorms rage across Earth's surface at any moment. They bring beneficial rains, but thunderstorms can also spawn lightning, tornadoes, hail, and flash floods. Many complex physical factors must be understood to predict which storms will turn violent. NCAR scientists and their collaborators pry into the heart of severe storms using aircraft, balloons, mobile radars, and computer models, with the goal of better understanding these events and increasing the warning times for affected locations.

Highlighted Topics

• Short-term Weather Forecasting: 0 - 48 hours

  Some of the most threatening weather events are the toughest to predict. With the right guidance in hand, meteorologists can issue "nowcasts"—short-term forecasts that outline how local weather will evolve in the next few hours.

• One to ten days

  Most weather forecasts offered by the news media cover some part of the 1- to 10-day period. To produce these outlooks, forecasters examine the results from sophisticated computer models that simulate the weather up to 16 days out.

• The edge of predictability

  Useful weather forecasts were once limited to a period of two or three days. Now, thanks to improved computer models, they fare pretty well more than a week ahead. However, if a forecast period is extended much further, the outlook becomes no better than chance.

• Seasons to years

  Some of the most dramatic progress in forecasting has taken place on this time scale. It's impossible to foresee how day-to-day weather will take shape, but forecasters can now make useful conclusions a year or more in advance about the likelihood of a departure from average conditions.

• Understanding the physical processes that create precipitation

  Understanding the microphysical development of precipitation in clouds, including ice and liquid phases and their interactions, leads to improved methods of representing precipitation formation in very high resolution weather models.



• Understanding & predicting severe storms

  Large, complex weather systems can dump snow on one city, coat another with ice, and drench a third in rain. These storms are shaped by weather elements that extend from the tropics to the poles and from ground level to the heights where aircraft cruise. NCAR is studying the mechanisms behind our worst storms.