A commercial weather provider, AccuWeather, has just started issuing 90 day forecasts for specific conditions at locations around the US. They have been getting blasted by meteorologists around the country for irresponsible science, since there is no skill in weather forecasting beyond about ten days, except for some general guidance about overall conditions. In past years, this kind of action was enough to get forecasters kicked out of the American Meteorological Society, the major professional society for meteorologists in the world. You can read more about the controversy at the Capital Weather Gang here.
While I don’t think that will happen in this case, you need to take any forecast beyond a week (from any company, not just AccuWeather) with a very large grain of salt, and anything beyond that as pure fantasy. Elliot Abrams, one of the lead forecasters at AccuWeather, told me in person at a conference than they acknowledge there is no useful skill beyond ten days and that any information provided beyond that is “purely for entertainment.” But, he said, that’s what the people want and so they are only too happy to give it to them. You can read more about verifying forecast accuracy in gory detail at OmniNerd here.
For a more lighthearted look at things that meteorologists know about weather forecasting, you might enjoy the title piece at Cracked.com here.
