NWS blows it again?
Mar. 16th, 2006 05:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoFor three days they've been warning us of the terrible snowstorm that was going to hit Wednesday night, increasing the accumulation of snow, issuing dire warnings about travel difficulties.
Yesterday morning they upped the ante again, to as much as seven inches of accumulation. I went and looked at the radar screens: nothing. As far as the thing could reach and two zones west, nothing. When I went to bed last night, the warnings were still flashing, as they are even now. You could see something on the radar, but it is the type of "storm" where often nothing reaches the ground. It all evaporates in the upper atmosphere.
As of dawn, to read the actual stuff coming out of NWS, we are in the midst of a blizzard. But if you look out the window, there is not a single flake. In fact, it has been so clear all night that the full moon was distracting, shining through the bedroom curtains. The temperature is above freezing, the wind is calm, there is simply nothing of note going on. When are they going to learn to look out the window instead of relying on defective computer modeling?
[Edit 9:30 am: It is now flurrying. From the radar and what I see outside, I still simply cannot believe the forecast. They have upped the expected accumulation to 8 inches, with an accumulation rate of as much as 2 inches per hour. Areas under the most intense part of the storm on radar are reporting snow flurries or light rain. At the moment the temperature is still above freezing and snow is melting when it hits the ground.]
[Edit 8:15 pm: As I suspected, this "terrible" storm was another dud. Instead of 8 inches of snow we got well under 2 inches, most of which melted as it fell. Ground cover ranges from none to about an inch of wet snow. The temperature never really dropped much below freezing all day. There was a lot of wind, but the precipitation was minimal. NWS clung to its prediction of 5 to 8 inches until it was perfectly obvious that nothing of the sort was going to happen. About the time that the snow stopped completely at sunset, they revised the evening forecast upwards from a possible additional half inch to 1 to 3 inches accumulation, but the storm was gone by. Whoever the idiots are who write those forecasts, it's time to get rid of them. My dog could do better.]
Yesterday morning they upped the ante again, to as much as seven inches of accumulation. I went and looked at the radar screens: nothing. As far as the thing could reach and two zones west, nothing. When I went to bed last night, the warnings were still flashing, as they are even now. You could see something on the radar, but it is the type of "storm" where often nothing reaches the ground. It all evaporates in the upper atmosphere.
As of dawn, to read the actual stuff coming out of NWS, we are in the midst of a blizzard. But if you look out the window, there is not a single flake. In fact, it has been so clear all night that the full moon was distracting, shining through the bedroom curtains. The temperature is above freezing, the wind is calm, there is simply nothing of note going on. When are they going to learn to look out the window instead of relying on defective computer modeling?
[Edit 9:30 am: It is now flurrying. From the radar and what I see outside, I still simply cannot believe the forecast. They have upped the expected accumulation to 8 inches, with an accumulation rate of as much as 2 inches per hour. Areas under the most intense part of the storm on radar are reporting snow flurries or light rain. At the moment the temperature is still above freezing and snow is melting when it hits the ground.]
[Edit 8:15 pm: As I suspected, this "terrible" storm was another dud. Instead of 8 inches of snow we got well under 2 inches, most of which melted as it fell. Ground cover ranges from none to about an inch of wet snow. The temperature never really dropped much below freezing all day. There was a lot of wind, but the precipitation was minimal. NWS clung to its prediction of 5 to 8 inches until it was perfectly obvious that nothing of the sort was going to happen. About the time that the snow stopped completely at sunset, they revised the evening forecast upwards from a possible additional half inch to 1 to 3 inches accumulation, but the storm was gone by. Whoever the idiots are who write those forecasts, it's time to get rid of them. My dog could do better.]
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 11:02 am (UTC)Our problem here is that Environment Canada (which no longer has an office in this province :-P) consistently under-reports the severity of current conditions during snow storms here. If you look at their records, I think you will find that there hasn't been a single blizzard here for several years, yet there have been many snow storms recently that anyone in their right mind would call a blizzard. For some reason, the storms here never seem to fit the requirements for barometric pressure or some other criterion that doesn't really matter unless you are looking at instruments instead of noticing the fact that you are caught in a blizzard that's being reported as "light snow".
no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 12:53 pm (UTC)