Computer Generated or Sketched by Human?

[Gerrit Gulden]

There are quite a bit of Models that We can find just about anywhere. From Temperature to dewpoint, Lifted Index, Fronts, etc. By the flip of some buttons you can look into the future of what can be expected, rain or snow, thunderstorm or rain storm or even cloudy skies or clear skies, hot or cold, etc.

My question is that for all of these Computer graphic Models, are they first drawn up by Meteorologists (man) and then Uploaded to the computer model page?

It is amazing how much info can be found about weather, current or future. What baffles me is the Process behind forecasting. Guessing the direction of the storm, where the dryline is. The math behind it all and everything else. If it is Man who draws up these Forecasts how can one forecast 60 hours out, are observations depended on for the forecasts and what else goes into Forecasts such as Fronts, Temperature, dewpoint, etc.

Thanks...

-gerrit

 

[Rich Thompson]

Gerrit,

The numerical model graphics are almost all generated by a few different software packages that are able to produce contours and color shading from gridded data.

The SREF and mesoanalysis graphics on the SPC web site are made with GEMPAK software, while the SPC forecast products are drawn (on a computer workstation) by a live forecaster.

Rich T.

 

[Bobby Prentice]

The Wikipedia "Weather Forecasting" page provides decent explanation of the process.

In short, computer forecast models provide a wide variety of weather forecast output, but the official forecasts seen by the end users (public, aviation, hydrology, etc.) are almost all produced by human weather forecasters. In the U.S., most weather forecasters work for the National Weather Service.