Do weather forecasters do better forecasting their "local" area than a distant city, all other things being equal? Does being "local" improve a weather forecast? These are questions I occasionally hear, and I've heard both sides. Proponents say that knowing the quirks of local weather help a forecaster improve his or her forecast, and that the only way a forecaster can learn about those quirks is by living it. Opponents say that computers do much of the work of forecasting, and that weather works on a large enough scale that the location of the actual forecaster doesn't much matter.

I thought I would look at the ForecastWatch database to see if it could help me answer the question. ForecastWatch collects data on over 800 U.S. and international cities for the major forecasters: Accuweather (located in State College, PA), Weather Channel (located in Atlanta, GA), CustomWeather (located in San Francisco, CA), Intellicast (located in Andover, MA), and the National Weather Service, with many centers around the U.S. Intellicast and The Weather Channel are owned by the same company.

I decided to look at one- to three-day out high temperature forecast accuracy for all of this year, so far. There were 800 U.S. cities where accuracy was calculated. Each forecaster was ranked in order of the total high temperature error for the forecasts. The National Weather Service came in first with 252 cities out of the 800. That means the NWS had the lowest average absolute error in high temperature forecasting this year (2005, through October) in 252 cities. Next was The Weather Channel with 248, Intellicast with 125, Accuweather with 122, and finally CustomWeather with 53 cities.

But that's not real informative. What we really want to see is who won each of the forecasters "home" states. Accuweather was founded and has deep roots in State College, Pennsylvania. Many of its meteorologists came up through the renowned Penn State meteorology program. If there is a "local" advantage to meteorology, Accuweather should have it for Pennsylvania. And indeed that is the case. Of the 23 cities tracked in Pennsylvania, Accuweather came out on top with the least error for 15 of those cities. So while Accuweather came out on top in only 15%% of the cities nationwide, it won 65%% of the cities in Pennsylvania. Accuweather also came out on top in neighboring Maryland, and tied with Weather Channel in New Jersey.

How about The Weather Channel? Headquartered in Atlanta, and with most of their meteorological staff there, would they come out tops in Georgia? They do! While they get the blue ribbon in 31%% of the states overall, they come out on top in about half the cities in Georgia, and lead all providers with 8 of the 17 cities tracked (NWS is next with 5). So it looks like they have a home field advantage as well.

Intellicast should win Massachusetts then, right? Wrong. It does rather poorly there, and also in New Hampshire, which is close to their headquarters in Andover. They are owned by the same company as The Weather Channel. Perhaps there is little local meteorological support in Andover? Or maybe there really isn't a "local" weather advantage. Maybe the statistics are just coincidental.

Let's look at CustomWeather, then. CustomWeather is the smallest of the tracked forecasters, but is very competitive in a lot of statistics. Unfortunately, they only led in less than 7%% of the cities, and didn't win their home state of California. But wait...they dominate Alaska and Hawaii, states probably forgotten about by the east coast forecasters. CustomWeather won 75%% of Alaska's 18 tracked cities, and 80%% of Hawaii's five. In fact, 24 of the 53 cities CustomWeather came out on top in (almost half) are in Alaska, Hawaii, and California. Not home field advantage, but pretty close.

(Click here for a larger version)

I don't think this data proves anything, but it is interesting. Maybe there is something to the assertion that being local gives weather forecasters an edge.