11 April 2016

Accuweather Forecasts to 90 Days are Scientifically Indefensible.

Posted by Dan Satterfield

Accuweather's Forecast for Ocean City in June is laughable.

This Accuweather Forecast for Ocean City, Maryland is laughable.

The comments from the science community when Accuweather’s started making 45 day weather forecasts were to put it mildly- blistering, and now that they have extended them to 90 days it’s no different. Forecasts of this type beyond 7-10 days (at the most) are simply not possible. If someone tells you otherwise, they’re wrong, because we are in the realm of palm reading and horoscopes here, not science. I agree completely with Jason Samenow from the the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post “[AccuWeather] is simply peddling a useless product to people who don’t know better”. These forecasts are actually even worse than the Farmer’s Almanac, since they give rain chances and temperatures for exact points months into the future!

This kind of thing should be condemned and if you have an accuweather app on your smart phone, my advice is to stand up for science and replace it. Your local meteorologist or NOAA will give you a responsible forecast, but what accuweather is hawking is nothing less than magic beans and copper bracelets, for those who don’t know any better.