Have you ever wondered if you can predict when the next drop would come out of your leaky faucet?
Well you can't.
Why are weather patterns so unpredictable? I'll tell you why... a little something called the Butterfly Effect (and not the stupid movie with Ashton Kutcher)! Every little tiny piece of the system effects every other little piece of the system and so when we think we understand the effects something is going to have, we really don't. The wind produced by the wings of a migrating flock of geese over Rhode Island couples with gusts of wind from somewhere else, creating a snowballing system of unpredictable weather which can lead to a hurricane off the coast of Guadalajara.. Certainly it isn't that simple, not that that is very simple, but that is somewhat simple compared to how complicated the actual system is.... because the complications are so convoluted and complex at such a small scale as to be completely contrary to common thought.....I think.
The Lorenz Attractor is a wonderful little image of chaos. it shows the equilibrium and between states of dynamical system. Each "eye" represents an area where the system has fallen into an equilibrium where as the area in between the two is a realm of a chaotic uncertainty. The system is unpredictable in it's movement, and yet there is a structure and shape to the chaos it is so evocative of.
(The Lorenz Attractor and the Butterfly Affect are accredited to Meteorologist and Mathematician Ed Lorenz)