So yesterday, I called Pilatus Fight Services to get an outlook briefing, as I was gonna try to take Midwest Chick to see her sister in mid-Michigan…And their prediction matched the other aviation forecasts….as well as Weather Bug and the local TV prognosticators…
Forecast was for broken clouds in the 2000-4000 until 6 AM, then clear or nearly clear for the rest of the day.
So I planned a flight for Saturday morning about 8 AM.
Yeah, not so much. In the following 12 hours, the forecast for the area changed DRASTICALLY to overcast at 2000-3000.
The clear weather was off to the west about 60 miles. At best, MVFR conditions all day for me and points north and east….all day. The clear weather didn’t move as predicted. Folks in Mid-Illinois are experiencing the weather predicted for me. So I cancelled the (short) cross country flight.
If we can’t predict the weather 12 hours out on a micro scale, how can we believe that anyone can predict what conditions will be on a macro scale a year from now? 5 years from now? 10-20-50-100 years from now?
Yes, I know, climate is not weather…except it is…..just on a smaller scale. Clouds are clouds. Fronts are fronts, Clouds and Fronts make weather, which makes climate. If your models are so poor that they can’t do a decent job 12 hours out, why should I trust anything you claim for periods a hundred or a thousand or more times distant?