Ok, so the Oregon Scientific WeatherNow II is a hassle-free, self-updating electronic weather forecaster.  I can accept that.  It gets its information from the MSN Direct network.  But how is the weather forecast in the first place?  I know they use some kind of Doppler Radar and other fancy tools, but what exactly do meteorologists measure to come up with an educated guess on whether or not it will rain Friday?

Well, typically they study current wind patterns and past weather history to make their predictions.  Barometric pressure is usually a good indicator of whether or not the weather is about to change.  Complex mathematical models of the atmosphere are used to run computer simulations of how current weather conditions will be shaped by shifting atmospheric conditions in the coming days.  Computers aren’t terribly smart, of course, so it takes a knowledgeable meteorologist to interpret the results of the many, many models and use intuition to predict the most likely  short-term outcome.

Sounds hard, huh?  That’s why I leave the predicting to the WeatherNow II.  I just don’t care enough to run my own computerized atmospheric simulations.