Fighting Against Weather Models With Judah Cohen

The Not Unreasonable Podcast

Ever wondered what the polar vortex is and why it can get so cold in the winter? Judah Cohen is among the few who has been able to predict these things has an answer.

Judah is director of seasonal forecasting at AER, a verisk business, and a visiting scientist at the civil and engineering department at MIT. Judah has observed, like many of us, that the major weather forecasting models aren't particularly good in the Winter. He builds his own forecast, modifying the outputs of those models, and has a pretty good track record.

I came across him because in the winter he maintains an exceptionally technical blog on forecasting the winter weather. He updates it weekly and keeps a running forecast of what's going to happen at various time intervals according to his own model and his modifications of the results of the more mainstream models all TV and website meteorologists use.

What really struck me in this conversation is how mysterious the atmosphere still is to the scientific community. We discuss this, Judah's proposed mechanism for the phenomenon we call the Polar Vortex, Judah's love of snow and much more.

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