A new tech startup is promising to deliver a weather application that can predict extreme weather events up to 40 days before they happen. But their claim is catching heat from veteran meteorologists. Continue reading after the jump.
The company, EarthRisk Technologies, has been working in conjunction with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego to develop the EarthRisk platform, and the HeatRisk subsystem that can see deadly heat waves long before they strike.
The model calls for a steamy end to the month for East Coast residents.
“We are seeing HeatRisk signals in the late August time frame for the Eastern U.S.,†explained Steve Bennet, chief science officer of EarthRisk. But despite an 80 percent success rate with its predictions, Bennet cautioned that his system is just a tool for meteorologists to use, and not an outright forecast.
“EarthRisk is not in the business of forecasting so I would certainly never say a heat wave is coming,†Bennett conceded. “That said, there is no question that some patterns are lining up that signal a higher probability for heat in the late August time frame.â€
Experts doubt even that.
Simply put, in the world of weather, long range predictions are unheard of.
For instance, the National Weather Service forecasts out only to two weeks. It does have more general outlooks, but “there’s a gap in weeks three and four” when it comes to hard forecasts, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the service’s Climate Prediction Center.
“Weather becomes very hard to model because of chaos,†Bennett told FoxNews.com. If a butterfly flapping its wings can start a hurricane on the other side of the world, then theoretically, one would need to track these butterflies to accurately foresee the future.
“Modeling the atmosphere is a very complex process. We just don’t have enough observations to see that butterfly,†Bennett told FoxNews.com.
Pretty sure Butterflies don’t start hurricanes…