wunder beta🌦️ How Weather Forecasting Works
How a modern forecast is built: from barometers and folklore to a global sensor network, supercomputers solving the atmosphere as equations, and the chaos that limits how far ahead we can ever see.
What you’ll learn
- From Folklore to PhysicsTrace how forecasting moved from folklore to instruments, telegraphed warnings, and the first weather maps.Weather lore captured real patterns but could not see approaching systems. The barometer gave the atmosphere a number, the telegraph let warnings outrun storms, and Robert FitzRoy issued the first forecasts. Plotting telegraphed reports produced the weather map, with its highs, lows, and fronts, setting the stage for a true science of weather.
- The Observation NetworkUnderstand the global observation network and why measuring the whole three-dimensional atmosphere is essential.Forecasting begins with knowing the current weather everywhere. Weather balloons rise twice daily worldwide to profile the atmosphere, buoys and aircraft cover the empty oceans, and satellites watch the whole planet from orbit. This internationally shared network, coordinated globally, supplies the data that every forecast depends upon.
- The Atmosphere as EquationsExplain numerical weather prediction and how it grew from a dream into supercomputer-driven forecasting.The atmosphere is a fluid obeying known physical laws, so its future can in principle be calculated. Bjerknes framed the vision, Richardson computed a forecast by hand in 1922, and in 1950 the ENIAC computer produced the first successful numerical forecast. Modern models divide the atmosphere into millions of grid boxes solved by supercomputers.
- Chaos and Reading a ForecastUnderstand chaos, the butterfly effect, ensemble forecasting, and how to read probability in a forecast.Edward Lorenz discovered that weather is chaotic, so tiny errors grow and limit forecasts to about two weeks. The butterfly effect describes this sensitivity, not literal causation. Ensembles run many forecasts to measure uncertainty honestly. Reading a forecast means treating a 70 percent chance of rain as genuine odds, not a promise.
- Skill and the State of the ArtAssess documented forecast improvements, the track-versus-intensity gap, and the frontier including AI models.Forecast skill has improved by roughly a day per decade, with modern five-day forecasts matching old three-day ones. Hurricane track prediction has improved dramatically while intensity lags. New satellites, finer models, and AI push the frontier, but chaos guarantees no skilful deterministic forecast much beyond two weeks.
Questions this course answers
Why does 'red sky at night, shepherd's delight' have some real basis in mid-latitudes?
In the mid-latitudes weather usually travels from west to east, so a red sky at sunset can indicate clear air to the west moving in, bringing fair weather.
Why was the invention of the barometer so important for forecasting?
Torricelli's barometer measured atmospheric pressure, giving weather its first quantitative measurement. Numbers can be checked, compared, and eventually fed into equations.
What did the electric telegraph make possible in the nineteenth century?
The telegraph let a storm report travel faster than the storm itself. Robert FitzRoy used it to issue the first public storm warnings and coined the word 'forecast'.
Why is measuring only the ground-level weather insufficient?
Weather is a global, three-dimensional system. Forecasters need conditions high in the atmosphere and over the data-sparse oceans, not just at the surface.
What do weather balloons carrying radiosondes measure?
Released simultaneously worldwide twice a day, radiosondes radio back temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind throughout the atmosphere, building a vertical portrait of the air.
What key advantage did satellites bring to weather observation?
Since 1960, satellites have watched the whole Earth from orbit, letting forecasters track storms crossing oceans with no ships beneath them.
Grounded in trusted sources
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- UK Met Office
- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
- World Meteorological Organization
Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.
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