Thank you so much for coming and braving the weather, what a great day to have a book about the weather. If you have been following the weather, who does not these days, you will have noticed at least two things, first it is getting weirder and wilder with bigger storms, hotter and more freezing temperatures and greater extremes seemingly all times of the year. Second the forecaster are Getting Better at predicting what is about to hit us, they still do not get it right 100 of the time but their accuracy is definitely improved and so has the timeliness of the report. These days were where not only of one weather model but of multiple ones simulating the fruifuture space of the atmosphe is north of a model, european model, global, and a number of others and their forecasting not just todays weather or tomorrows but whether over the next ten days and beyond. Andrew blum got interested in the stuff, he was not satisfied with explanations that attributed the advances and whether science for the supercomputers and better satellite. The journalist was a knack for making complex systems assessable and he did in his previous book which was a tremor on the physical infrastructure of the internet. And he saw and Weather Forecast a similar story, his new book the weather machine is an engaging look at what goes on behind the scenes, the International Collaborative effort that it takes to give us a daily weather report. Andrew recounts how forecasting has evolved from scattered stations to the uns world logical organization. He introduces readers to scientists, subtle and supercomputers that make up the world forecast assistance. He will be in conversation this evening with washingtons own expert forecasters, jason who is the weather at the Washington Post and chief meteorologist of the capital weather game. Jason himself has been fascinated by the weather since growing up in the d. C. Region as a High School Student he interned with bob ryan who at least some of you know and will recall for years the chief meteorologist for the local nbc affiliate, he went on to study atmosphere science in graduate school and worked as a Climate Change analyst at the epa in 15 years ago he established capital weather. Com, the first professional weather blog on the internet, the Washington Post absorbed the blog and 2008 and jason and his gang are now assessed read for anyone interested in the weather in the d. C. Area. Please join me in welcoming andrew and jason. [applause] hello, thank you all for coming and thank you for the good introduction. Ive been here before and really wanted to come back. Im glad to have the chance with the new book. I was a little nervous on the train when washington was washing away. Jason had a busy day, i was particularly pleased that jason agreed to be here, we met when i started this project several years ago, i went to the meeting of the Neurological Society and new i wanted to write something about this topic and was trained to figure out what might be in having all of the world meteorologist in one place was definitely a great starting point to figure out how it was put together. I did realize there was a Weather Museum and the second was there i was i warmly embracd and theres about 25 people. Which jason was assisted, but is great to have them here. We will talk for halfhour and then open it up for questions. In the past enough to. Its a pleasure to be here tonight, funny story the first time i ever took a number was with andrew from the american reader Logical Society meeting in atlanta to the airport. Back in 2014. Anyways as preparation that i did have to read the book, i have to say it was a joy. I found myself smiling and sometimes youre watching a great concert or great singer and a smile comes across your face because you moved by how powerful the performances and the writing is elegant and lots of excellent narratives and antidotes so it definitely earns my high recommendation. Anyway lets get started with the q a and lets begin with the motivation for the book and what made you sit down and decide that you wanted to write a book about the history of Weather Forecast. Theres a few different threats which we have time to go into print my background is mostly writing about architecture in writing about places, you cannot write about places without thinking about the weather. But weather is hard to write about especially if youre not a meteorologist or scientist, its very loosely in the words slip away. There is a constant challenge between you forget your umbrella in my dress properly for the day and catastrophic. I think that combination to you meteorologist and write about the weather in that way. It had stuck with me for a while. What stuck me was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Which was a moment the weather models reveal themselves. There were suddenly public conversation about the American Weather model in the european weather model and only that but an astonishing forecast, eightday forecast, sunday afternoon was the first inkling for sandy which arrived in new york city the following monday night and that exceeded all my understanding of what meteorologist were capable in terms of human ability and their own pattern recognition and manual stimulation of data. Clearly they had built systems that worst on astonishing. And the question of what are the weather models and how do they work was hard to interpret it was an incredible black box and that type of complex infrastructure was what got me going to recognize if i can figure out how these models worked, i could understand them to tell a story about them. And thats what like there was a story to be told there. And i underestimated complexity. Does anyone work in weather models . Okay. None. On underestimated their complexity because theres a very small group of people to work on them and improve them. And the entry to recognize what their parts and pieces were was significant. But it check the box that was so important for me for system that we touch every single day. The first book about the internet, heres a complex global system that we carry around in her pocket and is really a black box and it was a story and wanted to tell. And of course you cant tell it without going back in time to some of the history and how it develops. Lets talk about the history and the pioneering scientist in the 1800s who laid the foundation for modern day weather prediction, they were scientist in england and norway that you talk about in your book, lets go to the early contributors and how important the work they did was to be advancements that we see in weather production today. There is to histories of weather, there is a history of the Storm Chasers and watching sky and to see this heroic story of wind speeds in weather maps and all that. And theres another history of mathematicians and when i started to think about how to tell the so the history it was distinct from the other histories in a very much begins with a meteorologist bill, he occupied both histories, he came up with the idea to return to bennington century in the 20 century, 1904 was his main paper to calculate the weather and using equations of physics to describe the atmosphere would do next and with the main insight that each day calculation could be itself a hypothesis. And if you could calculate the weather you could prove whether cut collations were right or wrong and refine those calculations on a daily basis which is a process of improvement to a credible place right today. I feel like i should lay out that a audible place. But to say over the last 40 years, a fiveday forecast is a good of the 40 forecast ten years ago or today forecast 30 years ago. And that rate is not mentioning is increasing the talk of a two week forecast by 2025 so this made an improvement and it goes back to his idea of seeing if you can calculate the weather then each day is assigned six permit and you can try it again the next day. But then he cannot kick it like the weather of course, the biggest mathematician tried to cut to the weather and he realized he would need 64000 computers and 60 per thousand people we thought could be arranged in a stadium unit could each get their square of corresponding atmosphere and at that square they do the calculations and pass them up to the front and maybe that would work to calculate the weather fast enough for useful prediction. Because to calculate it has to be done before the weather comes or its not useful. That inability to calculate, the lack of observation, the lack of a computer to calculate them was essentially meant that their ideas had to wait 50 years until computers and satellites began to come in and had to wait in nearly 50 years, so the last 30 years to be useful beyond the human scale not just guidance but to exceed the capabilities of human meteorologist to the point, there is a human check but you would not find its hard to find meteorologist who say it dont work. Its remarkable how good the Weather Forecasting models are. Trillions of calculations per Second Period its amazing. One of the critical developments in American Weather prediction, we fastforward to the 1950s and 1960s, we alluded to this already, Weather Satellite. Talk about the history of Weather Satellite and how they played an integral role in the development of forecast and major discovery with technology. The key idea i fell in world with was a longerrange forecast for two and three and four you need a global view, it cannot just be and youre not just looking at the weather in north america, youre talking about the weather globally to talk about the entire global atmosphere. You need a global instrument, the stopper satellite drive, in the 60s he began to have the first inklings of that. It also amazes me that the monto comes out as a sink and joined civilian scientific and military effort that you have no satellite without the dollars spent and you have no Weather Satellite without the dollars spent for surveillance satellite in a scientific idea and military ideas are handinhand and until quite notably until kennedy, in the spring 1961 speech that we put a man on the moon before the decade is out, that was bullet point number one in bullet point number two was Nuclear Rockets for deep space travel, number three was comedic asian satellite and number four was Weather Satellite. Its amazing that you have a basic and fitness for global view in the same speech as a moonshot speech and the most famous infra structure speech. And then you have it rooted in an idea that its a national corporation. Sure enough, that speech in the leader speech in the fall of the human, the nuclear and isolation speech, the answer that kennedy proposed for togetherness in an alternative for peace was cooperation on weather observation and control. The control part got left behind but that idea from the very beginning about diplomatic collaboration between meteorologist from every country in order to make global data out of infrastructure to support global models kinda gives roots of cooperation that begins in the 19th century but current incarnation is inspired by kennedys idea of a Global Mission and that continues today, somewhat quietly and we often dont look beyond the American Weather service but everything depends on the global pool of data. Absolutely. Clearly the data is so critical to todays weather model whether youre talking about the weather balloon data, groundbased sensors and you just talked about whether satellites and whether satellites are superexpensive and cost governments billions of dollars but without them are forecast would not be where they are. So obviously the Weather Satellite data, the observations from groundbased sensors, weather balloons, feed these models and you went to two Different Centers to learn more about whether models. Angel went to the European Center for the forecast. I went to the national Weather Service but i did not put in the book. Talk about your experiences visiting the centers in the appreciation you gained for these models. You touched on this a little bit bullet here in depth of what makes these models work, the amount of intellects required to run these models, who are the people in these works and how have they been able to be so successful in improving Weather Forecast overtime. I think this competition between the american model and european model is shorthand but it was amazing and visiting both places, the journalist and cleaner stories for more legible stories, and its amazing that cleaner stories come from cleaner places and the places have a coherent organization and have a very focused Mission Statement and are much easier to describe and write about. And are often more successful because of that. So we weather model the fact that we take the starting point and theres a weather model war and european model to see and go visit the source of that for me too read Weather Forecast which is outside and is a collaboration funded by 32 European Countries that are contributing scientist and money with a singular goal of running the global model. And they do it by combining the research people, Weather Operations model people in the same building and an amazing cafeteria, cafeterias are becoming a cliche in the tech culture but i cannot believe that anyone got any work done because cafeteria was always full. And they had beautiful hot machines. But that constant day by day effort to consider what the model was doing, what it was spitting out and how it can be improved as the system was really tangible. It was built and not just in daily internal wiki of comments on this weird wise of doing it in with weekly meetings and quarterly meetings which are observed and read about. Its a constant sense of what is the model doing and how can they do better. I think the key point is when you say and talk about it a little, is not about a meatgrinder and whether the present was in in the future comes out, its about having an ongoing simulation of atmosphere that every six hours or 12 hours is compared to the most recent observations of the real atmosphere and corrected slightly to better match. In that is assimilated atmosphere or clicking Forward Together to run faster in time to give us the forecast. It makes you realize to make the forecast better to make the simulation better. Not just in assisted school and passed weather, its more about using these equations to simulate the atmosphere in a way that is close enough to reality that when it is run forward faster in time is bits of the weather of the future. And to see how eager the people at the center were to make sure they were getting it right which is not just to say they were getting the forecast right but to say the simulation they were building most closing resembles the real atmosphere for all the right reasons. That the actual physics match not just getting lucky repeatedly. And that is not Machine Learning or not a predicted problem in the way we think of elections or other Group Baseball or other predictive problems. It is unique and uniquely successful too. This is something that we as everything will day and mostly right. Does that answer your culture question . Did you find they were competitive and wanted to beat the other Modeling Centers around the world . When you say why are you doing this they say we want to be the best. And theres an ongoing discussion about the modern competition and as we were talking before theres a sense that it keeps everybody improving their model foster that there is a sense that they do it the u. S. Models are alluded by having to serve different masters and models and they say we run 12 models and they only run one, while that is true, the single focus on this tenday simulation of the atmosphere makes their collaboration in the competitiveness very productive. Im much more of a streamline process. Obviously we have talked a lot about great Weather Forecast. But theres a saying, your Weather Forecast can be 100 accurate but if people make the wrong decision based on an accurate forecast, the forecast is useless. When i began to understand of what makes a good forecast,. How does the forecast inform decisionmaking and does the forecaster provide the user the information they need so if there is a winning reception coming up that they will have a tent or not have a tent to keep it dry. In the aspect in your book. You think Weather Forecasting centers in the european in europe and the United States do think theyre gaining a better appreciation in the social science connecting the physical science which is the forecast with the decision . Its a per svice or the broader enterprises are excelling, the new links between the forecast and the decisions you make based upon. I write about a guy named tim palmer who is in oxford at the European Center and he tells an amazing story, is not a simple if its going to rain or knock wondering, how short are you and the visions are based on it. If youre having a party and a picnic and the queen is coming, a 20 chance then an 80 chance might not be enough to order tent. And if that sense of what is the use of a better forecast if it does not help our decisions. I think that is reasonable with the daytoday forecast, just because it was clear in going to rain monday morning four days ago, it was not clear how it was going to rain or we were talking before, what point this morning that it seemed like things were getting intense and then what decisions would