Introduction to Meteorology and Weather Forecasting

Abstract

Meteorology refers to the scientific study and analysis of weather conditions and atmospheric phenomenon on the earth, processes that cause these weather conditions, and their future predictions. Not just limiting to prediction, meteorologists note the physical conditions of the atmosphere above them, and they study the raw data from maps, satellite, and radar. Forecasts are highly needed for applications that are tailored to specific industries. Gas and electric utilities, for example, may need to have forecasts of temperature within one or two degrees a day ahead of time, or government may need to have data of rainfall for the areas having lower ground level to predict water overflow. The chapter provides a detailed introduction to weather forecasting, its requirements and types of forecasts, and its applications. Importance of data, weather prediction models and methods, machine learning approaches, and baseline measures in the weather prediction are also discussed. Thereby, it opens up an area of research and future developments in this direction.