Whenever I start talking online about the weather, there are a load of guys who want to tell you:

• You cannot rely on weather forecasts
• You shouldn’t worry about the weather forecasts– just go hunt
• The weather is too whacked-out anymore for reliable forecasting
• etc.

It is this monstrous barrage of willfull ignorance.  The truth of it is that 5-day forecasts are getting to be spot-on.  10-Day forecasts are still stretching it a bit.  We are now much better off than when I was a kid.  50 years ago, the radio and TV and newspapers were still struggling to forecast a 36 hour horizon.

One thing I will tell you that is a recent boon to the normal consumer is the personal weatherstation.  I put mine up last summer down at camp.  It set KYHillChick back less than $120, and it reports local weather conditions over the Internet to Weather Underground.  The way it improves my weather awareness is more for the  forecasting than anything else. Let me explain.

Yes, the little station does report things pretty darn accurately.  Weather Underground consistently gives it a gold-star award for reliability.  Big whoop! In the big picture, who cares what the weather is down on the end of my road?

AH!  That’s just the start.  The reason I wanted to put that station up was the shakiness of the forecasts.  If you went out on the front porch, my phone was telling me conditions in Berry, Kentucky.  If I was out on the back of the house, I was getting the forecast for Brooksville.  Sometimes I was in Milford or Falmouth or Auburn, and none of these forecasts agreed.  If I resorted to the NOAA weather radio, I could get stations meant for Cincinnati, Batavia or Lexington.  None of them agreed except in the most general way.  “Rain moving into the area . . .” what does that mean? When is it going to rain? Which area?

When I put up my weather station, it put a pin on the weather map.  The forecasts for CONUS are now pretty well automated. Massive computer systems crank them out using modeling software. By getting exact GPS coordinates, I now know down to the quarter-hour when precipitation will start and end. I know when bad weather will hit.  I know how fast the wind will be– not at Greater Cincinnati Airport or  Batavia, Ohio (my closest station of record). I mean right in my backyard!

So what?  Here’s what I know about the differences.   I’m about 60 miles from camp during the week.  I have a Weather Underground personal weather station reporting less than a 1/2 mile from the house.  It differs from the one at camp rather dramatically.  There is normally about a 5F difference in temperature.  That become significant when snow or freezing rain moves in.  It will snow at Cincinnati, but rain at the farm.  Rain will hit sometimes 4 hours later or sooner at one location versus the other.

In the big picture, so what?  I think it does make a difference.  Prior to my weather station coming on line, Falmouth, Kentucky had to rely on stations at Berry and Auburn and Brooksville for forecasts.  Now, I am the closest station to Falmouth.  It means everyone around me for 10-20 miles in every direction now has more accurate forecasting at their fingertips.  I think that’s cool.

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