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william gallus
professor
geological and atmospheric sciences

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"This is a very difficult problem to solve."

The odds are definitely in the house's favor when it comes to predicting the weather in Iowa. That's even more the case when it comes time to predict rainfall during the summer months. For more than a decade, William Gallus has been part of a National Science Foundation project to improve rainfall forecasting. He says don't look for this to be solved any time soon. "Forecasting models have improved drastically in recent years. But we're still a long ways away from being totally accurate."

So why is it so difficult? Bill says the latest computer models look at weather information obtained from grid points eight miles apart. Although this is a vast improvement from the older models that looked at grids 50 miles apart, thunderstorm cells are typically just too small.

And those long-range forecasts you see on the news. Don't count on their accuracy. "Some mathematical formulas used to grade forecasts suggest there is some accuracy out to seven days but any forecast skill really drops off after three or four days."