Adapted to the World Wide Web from a file on the University of Michigan Gopher. Another adaptation was done on a file describing techniques for making weather observations at the schools so the students can contribute their own observations to the online database.
Weather forecasting is a science and an art.
To make a good forecast you must know some meteorology and have a hunch what is going to happen based on experience. Forecasting temperature and precipitation will be discussed here since they are the most relevant parameters to the public. Before attempting to perform a weather forecast, one should understand a few key concepts in atmospheric science. Effects of topography, bodies of water, the urban heat island, etc. The following discussion will assume the reader is familiar with these concepts.