# Weather prediction question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 1, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754 "2011-02-01T04:48:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/1 "2011-02-01T04:48:47Z")
Frequently, when I check the weather online, it will give, as the low or high for the day, a number that is currently exceeded. For instance, right now, it lists the low for my town tonight as 3 degrees Fahrenheit, but the current temp as 0 degrees. Surely a computer could handle this adjustment on the fly. Why do they leave the erroneous predictions in place?
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### Author:  [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/2 "2011-02-01T04:49:52Z")
Crap. Title typo. Sorry. Orediction should be prediction.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/3 "2011-02-01T05:14:55Z")
> [@Renee](#):
>
> Crap. Title typo. Sorry. Orediction should be prediction.
Fixed typo.
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### Author:  [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/4 "2011-02-01T05:20:01Z")
Thanks 🙂
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/5 "2011-02-01T05:20:22Z")
My guess: A forecast is a forecast, and current conditions are current conditions. The forecast is written and published ahead of time. Perhaps the numbers come from a meteorologist who types them in, but I suspect there is a little program that generates them from a model for use in the report. Current conditions are updated more frequently. For example, when my dad was in the FAA he would gather weather information for hourly reports. Probably the forecast was published by a human, or else predicted and automatically written by a computer model, whereas the current conditions are updated continuously from a weather station.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/6 "2011-02-01T05:43:12Z")
forecasts are made for a large area.
if you were able to get data from observers you would see actual values that were most often near the forecast values. though observers just 10 miles apart can measure temperatures 5 degrees different and inches different in snow and tenths of an inch precipitation.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weather-prediction-question/569754/7 "2011-02-01T18:20:38Z")
There were some interesting answers when I asked the [same question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293375) here a few years back…