Weather updates help to keep people safe, whether planning outdoor activities, preparing for natural disasters or protecting life and property. They also play a key role in the economy, supporting business continuity, optimizing production schedules and ensuring employee safety. Private weather services can provide more granular information than public sources, helping businesses to take specific precautions or reroute operations, saving time and money while minimizing disruption.
In recent years, residents of high-income countries have grown accustomed to relatively accurate short-term weather forecasts. By some measures, today’s five-day forecasts are more than five times as accurate as they were just 40 years ago.
Forecasts are collected by a host of sensors on the ground and in the air. Doppler radar towers detect precipitation patterns and wind speeds, radiosondes float in the upper atmosphere to collect atmospheric data including temperature, barometric pressure, and winds, automated surface-observing systems gather real-time information about conditions on the ground, satellites scan the Earth’s surface, and supercomputers bring all this together to paint a vivid picture of what’s going to happen with the weather.
The availability of reliable, detailed and timely weather information is crucial for people and businesses around the world. Government agencies issue a variety of watches, warnings and advisories to protect lives, property and economic interests from natural hazards, such as floods and hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US and Environment Canada in Canada are examples of such agencies. In addition to analyzing the physical aspects of a weather event, they consider the needs and expectations of specific end users to inform forecast decisions and messages.