Monday, March 12, 2012

Forecast Accuracy from WeatherSpark

I've mentioned WeatherSpark in the past.  Which is not only my sole source of weather, but makes me compulsively check the weather several times a day.  While their standard graphs remain a great way to present forecasts, I just discovered they provide forecast accuracy reports.  They report four different sources of forecasts, and the accuracy report allows you to compare them (for a particular location).

http://weatherspark.com/forecast_accuracy/31876/2011/12/Mount-Holly-New-Jersey-United-States

While it provides an idea of which weather forecast source you should be trusting, it also provides some interesting insights in to forecast accuracy in general.  While temperature forecasts are pretty close, rain forecasts are not that great, and wind direction is basically impossible to predict.  Once you get out past 7 days, forecasts become less accurate than simply taking the average temperature of the past several years.

The averages page is also interesting:
http://weatherspark.com/averages/31876/Mount-Holly-New-Jersey-United-States

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