Lifestyles:Ellen's Forecast

A viewer posed the question 'how does Ellen come up with the forecast.' In this week's Lifestyles Report find out just what it takes to predict Montana's ever changing atmosphere.

Beartooth Meteorologist Ellen Bacca isn't just a weather girl. Ellen said, “I actually went to school for meteorology. I sat through the physics, I did the calculus. I actually have a minor in mathematics which means I went all the way up through differential equations.” 
    
These skills are necessary in determining Montana's seemingly unpredictable weather because she says forecasting has evolved over the past century from an art to a science. 

“Meteorology is a big force equals mass times acceleration equation. So we look at all these different forcings and we see how they add up and that equals your mass times acceleration or your clouds,” Ellen explaines. 

She says forecasting can be tricky because she looks at three levels of the atmosphere to determine what's happening at the surface.

“I start with 30,000 feet, where planes fly and the main thing I look at is wind speed there, and then you go down another layer and that's at like 18,000 feet, and there you look at spin in the atmosphere and you factor that in and then you go down one more to right around 10,000 feet and you look at moisture there, and all those things add together to give you your weather at the surface," Ellen says. 

With the community relying on the accuracy of her forecast she says there's a fine line between preparing people for conditions and going overboard. 

Ellen said, “If you're wrong then you're going to be misleading a lot of people, and another delicate thing that you have to do is make sure you're not making too big of deal about something that's not the end of the world. 

After getting the weather down to an exact science -- meteorologist Ellen Bacca brings you the nightly forecast.

Story by Kristin Price, Beartooth NBC.
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