Improved three-week weather forecasts could save lives from disaster
Weather forecasters in the Philippines got the tip-off in the second week of November 2019. A precipitation forecast that peered further into the future than usual warned that the islands faced torrential rains more than three weeks away. The meteorologists alerted local and national governments, which sprang into action. Mobile phone and broadcast alerts advised people to prepare to evacuate. By the time the Category 4 Typhoon Kammuri lashed the Philippines with heavy rains in early December, the damage was much less than it could have been. Having so much time to prepare was key, says Andrew Robertson, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society in Palisades, N.Y. “It’s a great example of how far we’ve come” in weather forecasting, he says. “But we still need to go further.” Such efforts, known as “subseasonal forecasting,” aim to fill a crucial gap in weather prediction. The approach...