Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[JRPGfan]

Nighthawk117 said:

JRPGfan said:

Are you a "meteorologist" ? do you know what computer based weather models need in terms of data points to accurately predict things?
Anyone can "look" at a sky, see if its cloudy or not, and report such.

Im not claiming I know, however I suspect the more data points, they more accurate their predictions.
For all I know, it might actually be needed that they do get data points from even china, to acurrately predict things.
(else why would they bother to share results with one another?)

Common sense would dictate that the weather in China has no bearing on the formation of hurricanes and their track westward.

"Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"

Butterfly effect.

"the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location. The butterfly does not power or directly create the tornado, but the term is intended to imply that the flap of the butterfly's wings can cause the tornado: in the sense that the flap of the wings is a part of the initial conditions of an inter-connected complex web; one set of conditions leads to a tornado while the other set of conditions doesn't." - wiki

Granted no models go to anywhere near that extreme, however I bet when they do models, they look at pressure systems and not just local ones, and the direction/strength/temp. of wind streams.... the futher out you want to make accurate predictions, the more data you would require.

I think you underestimate, what these super computers that look at weather models do, and how much data they require to give forecasts.