The Science of Weather and Flood Forecasting
12 February - 21 mins
Podcast Series
Show Me the Science with Luke O'Neill
Weather forecasts are famously imperfect, but the science behind them is far cleverer than we usually give it credit for.
In this week's podcast, Professor Luke O’Neill explores how weather forecasting works, and why floods remain one of the hardest things to predict. Luke isn’t a meteorologist — although he did briefly consider it in college — but too much physics put him off. Still, he’s an ideal guide to the basics because the weather is really about a few core ideas behaving badly.
At its heart, forecasting comes down to temperature, air pressure, humidity, sunlight, and the way air flows like a fluid. Air moves from high to low pressure, dragging wind and weather systems with it. Ad...
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