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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7473370" data-attributes="member: 29398">Also the record-keeping and analysis of the data thus generated.Problem is, for weather at least, reliable and consistent record-keeping hasn't been around that long (in the grand scheme of things) and in many cases still isn't reliable and consistent - even something as simple as moving a weather station from one part of town to another throws consistency out the window.A trivial-scale comparison would be trying to predict the outcome of a chess game - not just who will win but what the final position will be and how many moves it'll take.Given enough data from previous games played by the specific players involved, and a bunch of computing power, one could arrive at a tolerably-accurate guess...but that's all it would ever be.For weather, take all that and dial it up off the scale.&nbsp; Short-term - within 24 hours, say - is pretty easy to get right in most cases; and medium-term (2-4 days) is rapidly getting better.&nbsp; Get out much beyond that and the inaccuracies really start to rear their heads; anything beyond a week is more or less an estimate, anything beyond a month is really just a guess.&nbsp; It would take a galloping leap in available computing power to get it any better.Most of the time...but not all.Lanefan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7473370, member: 29398"] Also the record-keeping and analysis of the data thus generated. Problem is, for weather at least, reliable and consistent record-keeping hasn't been around that long (in the grand scheme of things) and in many cases still isn't reliable and consistent - even something as simple as moving a weather station from one part of town to another throws consistency out the window. A trivial-scale comparison would be trying to predict the outcome of a chess game - not just who will win but what the final position will be and how many moves it'll take. Given enough data from previous games played by the specific players involved, and a bunch of computing power, one could arrive at a tolerably-accurate guess...but that's all it would ever be. For weather, take all that and dial it up off the scale. Short-term - within 24 hours, say - is pretty easy to get right in most cases; and medium-term (2-4 days) is rapidly getting better. Get out much beyond that and the inaccuracies really start to rear their heads; anything beyond a week is more or less an estimate, anything beyond a month is really just a guess. It would take a galloping leap in available computing power to get it any better. Most of the time...but not all. Lanefan [/QUOTE]

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