Weatherfolks Prove to be WAY, WAY Off

For the last month, I have been keeping track of the high temperature for the day in light of the predictions of the LA Times. As noted in a previous post, the record was pathetic. I continued to add the data in each day, expecting things to improve...suspecting that I may have just picked a bad week. I can stop this extra little daily effort. Thanks to friends of Michael Williams, you can now check out your own neighborhood any day of the week to find out how various weather services are doing in predicting your weather. And you can look back and see how they score over the long term also.

So I checked out my zip, 90302. As mentioned, it should be pretty easy to get the percipitation right in West Los Angeles. The only issue on most days is what will be the high temp.

Weather forecast accuracy details for El Segundo, California

These are the one- to three-day out accuracy percentages for high temperature, low temperature, icon forecast precipitation (both rain and snow), and text forecast precipitation (both rain and snow). Temperature accuracy is the percentage of forecasts within three degrees. Precipitation accuracy is the percentage of correct forecasts. The forecasts are collected in the evening.

Click on the headers to sort by that column.

Weather Forecast Accuracy Data Last Month

Provider	High Temp	Low Temp	Icon Precip	Text Precip	Overall
MyForecast	95.06%	86.42%	98.15%	98.15%	94.44%
The Weather Channel	87.65%	92.59%	98.15%	98.15%	94.14%
Accuweather	86.67%	92.00%	98.00%	98.00%	93.67%
NWS Digital Forecast	87.65%	86.42%	98.15%	98.15%	92.59%
Intellicast	75.64%	92.31%	98.08%	98.08%	91.03%
National Weather Service	7.41%	91.36%	98.15%	96.30%	73.30%

Weather Forecast Accuracy Data Last Year

Provider	High Temp	Low Temp	Icon Precip	Text Precip	Overall
Accuweather	77.48%	82.38%	94.66%	94.85%	87.34%
MyForecast	73.40%	81.93%	94.13%	93.75%	85.81%
The Weather Channel	72.88%	79.44%	95.36%	94.88%	85.64%
Intellicast	73.17%	78.78%	91.17%	95.29%	84.61%
NWS Digital Forecast	66.67%	71.47%	91.96%	91.96%	80.52%
National Weather Service	45.24%	72.29%	94.73%	93.81%	76.52%

Please concentrate on the first column. Accuweather only hit the high temperature WITHIN THREE DEGREES 77% of the time last year. And National Weather Service was off more than half the time. Not surprisingly the low temperature is easier. Less variables in this area at night.

Let me repeat. These folks are telling us that they are absolutely certain that our temperatures are going to increase by 3˚ over the next 50 years. They want us to spend all kinds of money to stop it. They even want to have mankind interfere with the weather in order to stop it, with who know what potential for unforseen consequences. YIKES!

Go here to check on your neighboarhood.