"Why have weather forecasts become so much more accurate in the last several years?" — D.

One of the biggest changes is the adoption of Artificial Intelligence. 

Google’s DeepMind and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ AIFS are just a select couple AI models that have come online in recent years, some of which have rocked the industry with much better performance compared to their predecessors. 

These AI models are also looking further into the future more accurately than models before. We’re used to seeing the seven-day forecast being alright, but what about that wedding next month? Instead of forecasts relying on climatological averages of what has happened in the past, AI models are lending more forecast elements to long-term outlooks. 

The amount and variety of data is also quickly growing. 

Higher resolution satellite data is contributing more data from space while more weather stations and small networks, called mesonets, are being adopted on the ground. More top-down sounder satellites, aircraft, drones and gliders are providing data on temperature, moisture, winds and more throughout the atmosphere. 

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This keeps our computer models from guessing at the forecast. 

Modelers use the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” With more data going into models, the amount of garbage going into models is drowned out by better data. 

Computing power is another big change over the last decade or so. 

Supercomputers are able to compute models down to neighborhood level and see finer details than ever before. Models are able to resolve areas as small as football fields, or parts of thunderstorms or wind boundaries. 

We at The Weather Company have some new tricks up our sleeves to further improve your forecasts even further very soon.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 10 years. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.