WX forecast modeling

[Richard]

Interesting article targeted to the civilians, er, I mean the general population. John Lindsey is the meteorologist stationed at the Diablo Canyon nucleer power plant right on the coast.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/629129.html

A question I have: is MATLAB used on a larger scale than local or regional? (I 'heard' Tony and others talking about it but of course I have no idea what it is other than some modeling architecture.)

 

[Areeda]

MATLAB is a set of matrix manipulation and display functions with a cool language and interactive interface.

Without reading the article yet, I suspect it is used more to access and present the model output than generate the models.

Joe

 

[Ted]

I would think that Matlab would be used for crunching the numbers. That's basically all that mathematical formulas are, number crunching. That is what Matlab excels at.

To a number of engineering students, Matlab is also known as "That program I really don't want to have to learn." At least, that's what it was to me. I'm very glad that I work in a job where I don't need to use it.

Simulink (Matlab with shiny graphics for people like me) isn't so bad, though.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

I would think that Matlab would be used for crunching the numbers. That's basically all that mathematical formulas are, number crunching. That is what Matlab excels at.

To a number of engineering students, Matlab is also known as "That program I really don't want to have to learn." At least, that's what it was to me. I'm very glad that I work in a job where I don't need to use it.

Simulink (Matlab with shiny graphics for people like me) isn't so bad, though.

You can take my Matlab away when you pry it out of my cold dead fingers.

I use it every day at work and sometimes at home.

 

[gismo]

I would think that Matlab would be used for crunching the numbers. That's basically all that mathematical formulas are, number crunching. That is what Matlab excels at.

To a number of engineering students, Matlab is also known as "That program I really don't want to have to learn." At least, that's what it was to me. I'm very glad that I work in a job where I don't need to use it.

I think Matlab would be way to slow to do serious weather modeling but it might be a good tool for developing the algorithms for later optimization. The strength of Matlab is it's ability to do complex calculations with straightforward expression inputs and generate readable results that are imbedded with the expressions used to generate them.

 

[Richard]

I think Matlab would be way to slow to do serious weather modeling but it might be a good tool for developing the algorithms for later optimization. The strength of Matlab is it's ability to do complex calculations with straightforward expression inputs and generate readable results that are imbedded with the expressions used to generate them.

I think that answers the question for why it's used only on the local level WRT weather forecasting.