n one of my first blogs, I wrote about numerical weather prediction models and how they are the primary tool for making the daily weather forecasts.  Often, I am asked, "How good are the models?"  The squall line that rumbled through our area last night as well as Hurricane Earl offer insight into just how good our models have gotten.

As I am writing this, Hurricane Earl continues to churn just off the coast of the North Carolina this morning.  This has been a very well forecast storm, with all of the various models predicting the general track pretty well for the past few days.  Our primary NWP system at WDT, which uses the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, was no exception.  The graphic below shows a 39-hour forecast of pressure and winds generated Wednesday afternoon valid for 8 am EDT this morning overlaid on the visible satellite image for the same time.  You can see that the forecast position of the storm center and size is nearly perfect. 

Another good example occurred last night.  Our two local high schools here in Norman were scheduled to play season opening "Crosstown Clash" football game at the University of Oklahoma's Memorial Stadium.  Because the forecast was for afternoon and evening thunderstorms, I had lots of friends asking my opinion of the forecast.  The morning run of our WRF model forecast a squall line to develop and move through our area, impacting Norman right about game time (7:30 pm CDT).  I actually showed the forecast radar and cloud image in the graphic below to some of my friends in the early afternoon, telling them I thought there was a good chance we would have a line of storms moving through near the time of kickoff.  The radar image for that time shows that the forecast again was very good.  In fact, we had severe thunderstorms roll through, eventually leading to the game being postponed until tonight.  My friend now thinks I am an amazing forecaster, but in reality I have to give credit to the model in this case!

Of course, model forecasts are not always perfect, and often the details are off, but in the hands of expert weather forecasters they really do amazing things compared to where we were just a decade ago!