https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/polar-vortex-weather-forecasting-good-now/581605/

"It is dangerous, record-breaking, can’t-look-away weather. Yet this cold snap’s
arrival was preceded by a marvel so spectacular that we hardly noticed it: It
was correctly predicted. As early as a month ago, forecasters knew that
colder-than-average weather would likely strike North America this month; a week
ago, computer models spit out some of the same figures that appeared on
thermometers today."

Meteorologists have never gotten a shiny magazine cover or a brooding Aaron
Sorkin film, and the weather-research hub of Norman, Oklahoma, is rarely
mentioned in the same breath as Palo Alto. But over the past few decades,
scientists have gotten significantly—even staggeringly—better at predicting the
weather.

How much better? “A modern five-day forecast is as accurate as a one-day
forecast was in 1980,” says a new paper, published last week in the journal
Science. “Useful forecasts now reach nine to 10 days into the future.”