Application of Statistical Methods to Weather Forecasting

  • George P. Wadsworth
Chapter

Abstract

It must seem very odd to the layman and to the scientist who is not connected with the field of meteorology that so little practical progress has been made during the last decade in the all-important problem of weather forecasting. This defect is particularly conspicuous when such phenomenal advances have been made in the field of nuclear physics and thermodynamics. However, it is necessary to spend only a moderate amount of time examining observational data of the meteorological elements to understand that the problem is much more difficult in many of its aspects than those considered in most allied fields. If we regard the atmosphere as a dynamic model, it soon becomes apparent that the whole process behaves as a complicated mechanism in which past and present values do not determine the future as in most linear processes, but they themselves have an effect upon the system which in turn produces nonlinearity of a very peculiar type. It is with this phenomenon that the meteorologists must contend.

Keywords

Weather Forecast Random Component Weather System Stationary Time Series Synoptic Situation 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© American Meteorological Society 1951

Authors and Affiliations

  • George P. Wadsworth
    • 1
  1. 1.Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUSA

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