Weather news covers a broad spectrum of information about the atmosphere including its physical structure, chemical composition and biological activity. The weather affects all aspects of human activity and society, from agriculture to transportation to recreation. It is one of the most active areas of scientific research. The atmosphere is a complex system that is constantly changing due to a variety of factors. Therefore, it is a difficult area to predict with accuracy.
Many government agencies are responsible for observing and reporting on the weather. They often present the results to the public through newspapers, television, radio, and the internet. The information they provide is crucial to the safety of life and property. Weather forecasts and watches/warnings/advisories allow people to take precautionary measures to avoid dangerous conditions, such as lightning strikes or heavy rain.
There are also military branches that observe and report the weather as part of their specialist divisions. The Royal Navy for example has its own meteorological branch within the Hydrographic and Meteorological Specialisation, whose job it is to monitor global atmospheric and oceanographic conditions. These conditions are then presented to submarines, ships and Fleet Air Arm aircraft to ensure that they have the information required to carry out their operations.
A wide range of different companies produce weather information, some of which are better known than others. These include The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, the BBC and many more. Many of these use supercomputers to run mathematical models to simulate the atmosphere. These are designed to solve for the various physical processes that shape the atmosphere, but each model is slightly different in how it calculates these parameters and uses its initial data. The slight differences multiply out over time as the models are run, which is why one company’s weather model is not exactly like another’s.
