Here is a project which will hopefully give you a feel for just how difficult it is to predict the weather.

You will need a journal, or log book.

Every day, for the period of a month, check as many weather forecasts as you can. Television news broadcasts are good, as is the Weather Channel or weather.com. Try to get at least five sources.

In your journal, make a note of both the next day forecast and the five day forecast for each source, and the actual recorded weather for the day.

At the end of the month, you should have around 150 next-day forecasts and 150 five day forecasts, as well as the actual recorded weather for each day of the month.

Check how the next day forecasts compare between different sources; check how they compare against previous five day forecasts, and check how they compare against the actual weather conditions for any given day. Do the same sort of thing for the five day forecasts.

Here are some questions to answer:

• Who provided the most accurate predictions for the month?
• How accurate is next-day forecasting?
• How about forecasting two or three days in advance?
• How does the five day forecast change over time? What happens to predictions for the fifth day when it becomes the fourth day, and then the third day? Does it stay the same?
• After how many days do forecasts seem to lose their accuracy? Or are they often accurate for all five days?

If you know how, you might want to do some statistical analysis on the data you have generated.

When you've completed the project, you should think about how it has changed the way you watch weather forecasts.