Article has some good graphics.
The Met Office says its four-day forecasts are now as accurate as its one-day forecasts were 30 years ago.
Includes data and graphs on hurricane forecasting errors for the Atlantic.
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I would say that the accuracy of weather forecasts depends on where you are geographically. New Zealand has a lot of empty ocean to the west where much of our weather comes from. The East Coast of Australia gets more reliable data than the West Coast.
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In the early 1980s (1982-84) I attended a lot of moves on an Argentinian J/U rig off Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The forecasting problem you describe for New Zealand was even greater there.
Basically if you sailed east from there the next land mass you would meet is the Chilian side of Tierra del Fuego.
Little shipping and very little weather satellite coverages of the waters to the west just made forecasts even less reliable than in the North Atlantic, or Pacific.
In July 1982 we got caught afloat in a sudden un-forecasted storm, broke towlines and drifted into the South Atlantic. This was just after the Royal Navy had declared all Argentine shipping outside territorial waters as âlegitimate targetsâ, so this was not a comfortable situation to be in.
From the next rig move onwards two meteorologists from a commercial forecasting service in Houston was flown in to set up a âweather centerâ at the shore base in Rio Grande to give us as good and updated forecasts as possible. Better, but still some ânear missesâ.
Later, from the rig we manage to establish communication with the lighthouse keepers at Evangelista on the Chilian coast. When a storm approached them they alerted us by SSB.
We then had abt. 4-6 hrs. to get ready for it.
It has probably improved a lot even there, with more satellite data available and a lot more computing power available to make the prediction.
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