Weather Forecasting

They returned to the tent, where most of the 200 guests had gathered for the reception. The flaps were whipping, and one or two small pegs were uprooted, but even so, there seemed no reason to worry. The tent, 60 feet by 120 feet (18 meters by 37 meters) in size, was anchored by stakes driven four feet (1.2 meters) into the ground. "This thing's not going anywhere," the DJ told Jason. In this article, you will learn more about todays forecast syracuse ny.

The groom turned, took four paces, and heard a ferocious whoosh behind him. A single devastating gust ripped the tent out of the ground and lifted it over his head. Six-foot (two-meter) stakes flew through the air like javelins. China and glass shattered. A 30-foot (9-meter) main pole swept across the lawn as the family and guests ducked or flung themselves to the ground.

The gust, which lasted just seconds, had the freakish capriciousness of a tornado. It slammed the tent back down so hard that stakes were driven into the earth again. "It was so fast it was uncanny," Jason says. Seven people were hurt by flying stakes and glass. The groom's step-grandmother was rushed to a hospital in Burlington, where she died of her injuries.

Weather moves on a grand scale, in fronts and storms that can span half a continent. But it is also intensely personal and extremely local. The brilliant weather at the wedding, the terrifying storm at the reception—this is weather on the scale that matters to us. So we demand of meteorologists the near impossible: Understand the drama of the entire planet's atmosphere, and tell us what to expect here. Today.

Thanks mainly to keener instruments and more powerful computers, forecasters are extending their reach into the uncertain future. These days a forecast of the daily high temperature five days in advance is likely to be about five degrees off in the United States, two degrees better than in 1975. Flash flood warnings have improved from 7 minutes in 1987 to 47 minutes in 2004. Had last summer's barrage of hurricanes along the Gulf Coast and Florida struck 30 years ago, landfall predictions three days ahead could have been off by as much as 475 miles (764 kilometers). By last year the average error had been cut by nearly 300 miles (483 kilometers), allowing more selective evacuations.