WCBS meteorologist Jeff Berardelli makes a great point in today's discussion of the storm that wasn't. Forecasters are sometimes lured by the level of detail included in today's computer model predictions. But a detailed long-range forecast doesn't mean an accurate forecast, and the level of detail sets up an expectation that just isn't possible.

This perception is created by other weather services. The National Weather Service now has these "pinpoint" forecasts stretching out to 7 days. We aren't told that in 7 days it will simply be warm or cool; we are told that the high will be 76. Accu-Weather is even more evil. They have a 15-day forecast on their Web site. In addition, when they issued their long-range seasonal outlook, they had the gall to issue a press release saying that because their forecasts are more detailed than those of the National Weather Service, they were more accurate. This is absolute nonsense. There is no evidence that Accu-Weather's long-range forecasts are more accurate. In my view, there is no evidence that Accu-Weather meteorologists are even competent.

Meteorologist Nick Gregory keeps it honest by limiting forecasts to five days. (Full disclosure: Nick is a friend of mine.) His approach is the right one. You may take a good guess from the models that it will turn colder or warmer next week, but that's about it. And sometimes that's not even right.

Weather services, public and private, would be wiser to do more research and development on short-term forecasting, such as where the hurricane will go tomorrow or how much snow will fall in the next several hours. That makes much more of a practical difference and is a lot more useful than the latest 240-hour prediction by a computer model.