The National Weather Service is aware that it's running behind in the so-called weather modeling wars, and the agency is touting recent improvements as well as planned changes set to take place in the next few years.Ĭategory 5 Hurricane Irma seen from space before striking the northern Leeward Islands. In addition, they say, the model needs to process weather information in more advanced ways, with greater resolution in both the horizontal and vertical scale, since the weather on the surface depends heavily on what is going on in the mid-to-upper atmosphere. weather models and their international competitors could put billions of people at risk.Ĭritics of the GFS say it needs to be improved with greater computer processing power. Given weather's sizable influence on the economy, the growing gap between the reliability of non-U.S. The GFS model, however, didn't catch on to the storm's unusual track until about 5 days in advance. The issue gained prominence after Hurricane Sandy struck New Jersey in October 2012, which the European model hinted at at least a week in advance.

Hurricane Irma is one more in a long line of storms to shine a spotlight on problems with the GFS, particularly at intermediate to longer timescales. Before and after photos show Hurricane Irma's devastation in the Caribbean

Hurricane track model