| Although meteorology is in many ways a much older science, I think you are underselling the difference (and importance of computers here). Better computing power means a more accurate forecast, but typically also a longer forecast horizon. That is critical when preparing for natural disasters and absolutely saves lives all the time. Even at a 3-day lead time, GFS was still suggesting landfall for hurricane Sandy outside the New York region, the longer lead times provided by other centers (with more computing power) were very important for preparation [1]. Even on the science side, increased computing power enables a host of new discoveries. Even storing the locations for all the droplets in a small cloud would require an excessive amount of memory, let alone doing any processing [2]. Increased computer power enables us to better understand how clouds respond to their environment, which is a key uncertainty in predicting climate change. Many disciplines of meteorology are also much newer than nuclear physics. Cloud physics (for example) only really got started with the advent of weather radar (so the 1940s). Before that, even simple questions (such as can a cloud without any ice in it produce rain?) were unknown. Even today, we still have difficulty seeing into the most intense storms. You cannot fly an aircraft in there, and radar has difficulty distinguishing different types of particle (ice, liquid, mushy ice, ice with liquid on the surface, snow) and is not good at coutning the number of particles either. Even after thousands of years, we are onlyjust now getting the tools to understand it. There is a lot left to discover about the weather! [1] - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... [2] - https://www.cloudsandclimate.com/blog/clouds_and_climate/#id... |