Predicting weather isn't an exact science. Here's why many forecasts miss

Weather is a crucial part of daily life

We make constant decisions, like if we should mow our lawns or water our plants

to bigger choices, like whether we should host a barbecue. With huge advances in technology, though, there is more data than ever before for weather forecasters

So why do we get different forecasts from the weather app on our phone, our favorite meteorologists, and the literal reality of walking outside

The weather has become a little bit more extreme, you could say, across the country

And with the changing climates and all that stuff, it's never been more important to have that kind of local expertise, you could say, that actually lives in your community, right

Nick Jansen is the chief meteorologist with KTTC in Rochester, Minnesota, about 90 miles southeast of Minneapolis

Like many weather professionals, Jansen's passion started at a young age. Obviously, growing up in the 90s, the movie Twister, right, was one that was always on in the background in my household

Gentlemen, the extreme, it's the extreme. When I went from elementary school to middle school, so in Illinois, that was fourth grade to fifth grade

And they asked on there, you know, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I actually wrote down, you know, meteorologists

My mom still has that piece of paper. For meteorologists across the globe, delivering forecasts is about more than getting to promise a sunny day or letting you know you might need a light jacket

I grew up in Billings, Montana. Tornado warning. I was a kid running outside looking up at the clouds and that's exactly what I did

I saw my first funnel cloud. As a meteorologist, the goal of the whole science is definitely to save lives and property, to give people information, to make choices for their business, for their daily activities

Meteorologist Hutch Johnson's trajectory went from research meteorology to broadcast in weather hotspots like Fargo, North Dakota

There will also be thunder for the people in the southeast. Have you done this before, William

No, but... A little bit. Before going independent with Hutch's weather, meteorologists do their best to be ahead of major weather events

But things can change really quickly It safe to travel from San Antonio to Fredericksburg I would wait a little bit You know you going to encounter a lot of flooding In July flash floods ripped through Texas Hill Country

The floods claimed more than 100 lives, including at least 27 at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp

As the state responded to the catastrophic flooding, Texas's emergency management chief explained how different forecasts can be from reality

The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service

predicted three to six inches of rain in the Concho Valley and four to eight inches of rain

in the hill country. And the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any

of those forecasts. In 2025, offering coverage for warning systems to the vast American landscape

is still a challenge. Many, many people lost their lives because they did not receive critical

warnings that were issued by the National Weather Service. I grew up in Connecticut and the first

storm that really ignited my interest back was the blizzard of 1978, so kind of dating myself. I was a

little kid back then, but also Hurricane Gloria in 1985. And those two storms really helped me

kind of ignite my interest in meteorologists. Brian Lamar recently retired from the National

Weather Service after 30 years. He launched Inspire Weather, a consulting agency to help

organizations from media to emergency management better understand weather data. It's important to

Remember, local TV reporters are members of the communities they serve, and they have as much at stake as viewers

Heads up if you live along Massachusetts or Wisconsin Avenue. Can't you there, buddy? Yeah

All right, hey, man, I want you to get down in the basement. We got a tornado warning. In recent years, broadcast meteorologists have made headlines for alerting their families to inclement weather

All right, thanks, Zach, for that. Sorry, I just had to text my wife. Baby was sleeping well tonight, so that's going to be over with

And what made that day a little different than regular days is that we knew that, you know, we would have strong storms well after sunset and after bedtime for a lot of people

Jansen caught some guff from viewers for taking time out to warn his wife about the coming storm

His Facebook post in response made it a somewhat viral moment. I not only had my wife at home with the baby, but also my mom

So I made sure that they knew, hey, you know, if this rolls in at 1030, 11 o'clock, you

know make sure that you have your phones on and stuff like that So you know either you can get the alerts or I can shoot you a quick text message It wasn the first time Jansen had ruffled some feathers by telling his wife to take a shelter

during severe weather. But he says despite some negative comments, the response was overwhelmingly

positive. Meteorologists have access to a massive treasure trove of data. Information is reported

through a real public-private partnership. So basically the public side is a government

National Weather Service, NOAA. And the private side is private weather companies, consulting companies, media

And we're all using that same data to provide forecasts. When a tropical storm is set to hit the East Coast

you'll often hear about the American and European models, which can have slight differences

Numerical weather prediction models crunch numbers to simulate and predict future atmospheric conditions

They grab real-time temperature, moisture, and wind conditions from satellites, weather balloons, and sensors on the ground

There are a lot of models out there, and more are being developed as AI becomes more prevalent

Meteorology is not an exact science. Touching on that, you go to the doctor and it's like, it hurts when I do this

And they say, well, number one, don't do that. And then let's take a look. Many sciences are not exact

So ultimately, your weather app is deriving the information from some model

It's either inputting one specific weather model or sticking a blend of weather models

Matt Lanza is another former broadcast meteorologist based in Houston, Texas. He now works with Space City Weather and the IWALL

which he co-founded to enhance understanding of tropical storms and extreme weather

And Lanza explains these weather models can have bias that skews the data

So good examples of this are like the American model, what we call the GFS model

It tends to have a bias where in urban heat island areas, areas that are well built up, there will be some sort of extreme temperature that it adjusts for

So instead of saying like on a day where it's supposed to be about 100 degrees, it might say it's going to be 107, 108 degrees

There's people that you've formed some trust with in your local area that know different things

like these models don't always understand the local differences weather can make oh we just

got four inches of rain in this community because of that it not going to get quite as hot because the sun energy is going into evaporating rain all of those factors come into our forecast as we kind of model them And when it comes to the private side of things weather observers strewn throughout the local area can measure anything from temperature to

the amount of precipitation. And that can introduce another set of biases. So I know in the past

I would call a weather observer or a school, wherever that location is that's reporting that

data. I'm like, by the way, where is your thermometer? And they're like, oh, it's in the

parking lot. I'm like, okay, well, thank you very much. You know, so that right there tells me that

it's heating up a lot faster. It might be good in the wintertime, might be really bad in the

summertime. Each individual weather app has its own process for reporting current conditions

The weather app native on all iPhones receives data from the National Weather Service and NOAA

and similar government agencies from around the globe. It even mines proprietary data from private

entities the likes of the Weather Channel and Breezometer, which gathers air quality data

But some weather apps are just sharing raw data rather than refining it. They're not really doing much with it

And that's a little bit of a dangerous game to play because you're just relying on that model being right all the time in one place

Still, the best place to go, according to these experts, is your local expert

Everything is based on people's experience, based on what you know as a forecaster, based on what you know from model biases, and where you've just had success, really, in using one model versus another

Instead of saying snowfall forecast, I will often put the term snowfall potential because models show us a high end and a low end

And to communicate that more clearly, I will say now it shows the heavier stretch of snow here, but it very easily could shift 50 miles one way or the other

All the meteorologists who spoke with S.A.N. note that watching your local TV station for the weather isn't as popular as it once was

But there are ways to keep yourself safe in the event of severe weather. It's really important for people to have a NOAA Weather Radio

you know, for people to have also a weather app on their phone that they trust

It could be a TV station. It could be a mercy management. FEMA also has a weather app

The National Weather Service doesn't have an app of its own at this time, but Lamar explained the agency helped develop FEMA's app

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Brent Jabbour. For more in-depth reporting, head to san.com or download the Straight Arrow News app