Checking the Forecasts

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

This will be an eyeball study to determine how accurate weather forecasts are the farther away you get from the present. Don't expect any fancy statistical graphs, erudite commentary, or anything approaching scientific rigor (maybe I can be a climate scientist after all! ;)). This will simply be a daily comparison or multi-day weather forecasts from two popular weather sites, Weather.com, and Weatherbug.com.

My goal is to get a feel for whether multi-day forecasts really provide anything of value, apart from stating general weather patterns which anyone of us could predict (e.g. it will be drizzly and overcast in Seattle). This will be a work in progress. After a few days I'll go over the forecasts to see what may have changed. Any feedback is appreciated.

Starting with a 5-day forecast from Weather.com, and a 7-day from Weatherbug.com (click the thumbnail image to see a full-sized picture.)

Forecast Comparisons

Date	Composite
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 21, 2012