Computer models certainly produce forecasts, but humans are needed to interpret these forecasts. At each National Weather Service office, forecasters typically

Computer models certainly produce forecasts, but humans are needed to interpret these forecasts. At each National Weather Service office, forecasters typically use model output to guide their daily forecast products, such as temperatures and precipitation probabilities. However, these forecasters are aware of smaller-scale nuances of their forecast area, such as topographic influences, land-sea interactions or urban heat island effects, which models may struggle to resolve. Human knowledge of model limitations helps to produce a better forecast. A further example would be hurricane forecasting, where National Hurricane Center forecasts typically outperform most models (see http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/verify6.shtml http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/verify6.shtml for starters).