How accurate are 7, 10, and 15 day forecasts?

Question

Is it really possible to accurately predict a forecast a week to two weeks out? The reason I ask, I have a big outdoor event in 2 weeks and accuweather.com says "rain", Im just wondering how accurate they are?

Answer 1

most likely it will be inaccurate! things change so fast with the weather

Answer 2

As much as I love the weather and have trust in meteorologists, forecasts that far out are almost never accurate.  I would say anything past 4 days is strickly guess. I wouldn't go by what you see in 15 days.

Answer 3

7 day = Somewhat accurate. The "general idea"of what to expect in a week is usually pretty accurate, but the finer details (exact temperatures, winds, rain chances) are usually a bit off.

10 day = Not very accurate. Sometimes you can get a feel for whether it looks like a warmer, cooler, wetter or drier period is approaching, but details such as sky cover and temperatures are not to be trusted. I definitely would not make plans based on a 10-day forecast.

15 day = Almost always inaccurate. Though on occasion these predictions can be somewhat correct, they are more often than not just plain wrong. Too many things can occur to change the forecast at over two weeks out, and the forecast is more or less just a c**p shoot. I would never makes plans based on a 15-day forecast.

Answer 4

even the weather for the day's weather is often inaccurate it's even worse 7 days from now

Answer 5

not accurate at all, unless you are in the desert or in the rainforest

Answer 6

My wife, who has a BS and MS in meteorology (but does not practice it professionally) noticed that in our local media about 18 months ago, all the TV stations were doing 7 day forcasts (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX), then suddenly, they all stopped at the same time.  Our local NBC guy does a "6 day" forcast, but only on Tuesday (reaching through the weekend).

My wife thinks they discovered the models were broken.  Nonetheless, it was quite strange.