ERIC TALKS ABOUT WEATHER TO LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL CLASS

Eric Floehr, founder of ForecastWatch.com, was recently invited to speak to Marysville High School students about the weather and weather forecasting. The students were studying weather in Ms. Juergen's special education class. "I really enjoyed talking with the students." said Eric. "They were interested and excited to learn more about the weather and weather forecasting. They asked about hail, how lightning is formed, and how people predict what the weather will be like. Their curiosity was wonderful. I hope they never lose it."

CLIMATE AND PERSISTENCE FORECASTS NOW IN

ForecastWatch.com is adding skill measurements, comparing skilled forecasts with climate and persistence "no-skill" forecasts. As part of that, climate and persistence forecasts have been put into the same system as the forecasters. Because of this, it is now easy to see how well climatology and persistence forecasts compare. This allows some interesting questions to be answered. Which is more accurate, using climate or persistence forecasts? You might suspect that persistence is probably better than climate when predicting a day out. But does climate ever become more accurate? If so, how far out?

You'll be happy to know that the unskilled forecasts don't ever beat the skilled forecasts in aggregate. That's certainly what you'd expect. Meteorologists do a good job, even if the public often only remembers the misses. The next step is using the new data to derive skill measurements, and make those available. For now, those with online access can compare accuracy measurements against climatology and persistence forecasts.

MAY TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION ACCURACY DATA AVAILABLE

May accuracy data has been audited and loaded for viewing. After being negatively biased, on average, since February, high temperature forecasts swung to a positive bias in May, by about 0.21 degrees. Overall RMS continues to decline as expected as we enter the summer months. To view the May data, as well as year-to-date and historical numbers, log on to http://www.forecastwatch.com

As always, let us know what you think at ideas@forecastwatch.com . We welcome your ideas and suggestions to make our services better and more useful.