DOT Moves Its Snow Site

The Connecticut Department of Transportation compiles snow data at its garages. The methodology is flawed, but it’s as good as we’re going to get.

This season, they’ve mysteriously moved the data to here. I have a link on the right side index and it has been changed to reflect the correct address.

By the way – my snow forecast was close enough to go complaint free (that’s not an invitation). Though I was off in a few spots by a few inches, I nailed the precipitation type, the trickiest part of this particular forecast.

Now I can breath again.

Connecticut Snow Totals

This seems to be a question of general interest. How much snow did Connecticut get? The Weather Service, since their switch to automated readings, has become less helpful in this regard. However, the Connecticut Department of Transportation does keep good records of each snow storm.

Blogger’s note: This entry first ran in 2005. It gets found again each winter. In February 2008, I updated the snowfall link to CT DOT which seems to change on a yearly basis. Now, in February 2010 it’s changed again!

This seems to be a question of general interest. How much snow did Connecticut get? The Weather Service, since their switch to automated readings, has become less helpful in this regard. However, the Connecticut Department of Transportation does keep good records of each snow storm.

Here’s the only problem: DOT clears the recording area and starts fresh for each reading. That gives higher totals than standard readings because there is much less settling in the DOT method. However, it’s the best, most consistent source.

Any port in a storm, I suppose.

Another Storm

Every time the Connecticut Department of Transportation rolls their plows they keep an online log. So it’s easy to go back and say there have been 16 storms so far this season. Not all of them were very significant, but they were storms none the less.

Number 17 comes tomorrow.

I was very pleased with my forecasting on the last storm. I was a few hours late on the scheduled arrival, but 90% of the state got what I predicted. The corner that got more than anticipate had been forecast to get the heaviest snow already.

Very few complaints – that’s how I judge the effectiveness of a forecast. I’d like to say no complaints, but I’ve gotten tagged even when I was dead on… and even gotten complaints based on the Weather Channel’s forecast (honest – I wouldn’t make that up).

This next one is made tougher by the failure of the two most trustworthy models, the NAM and GFS, to agree. Their disparity isn’t small. It’s the difference between snow to rain or snow, period! That’s an immense difference.

Because of the timing, I get to take my last shots when the storm will still be 16 hours away. Much of what I say will be based on changes in structure that won’t have happened yet. So, my prediction will be supposition, piled on supposition, piled on supposition. They’re all interlocking predictions. Blow one and the rest tumble like a house of cards.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a great job. I love what I do. It’s just sometimes forecasting the weather is more difficult than other times, and those are always the times that are most critical.