A few folks wrote to me because one of yesterday’s runs of the GFS computer model predicted snow over Connecticut for midweek next week. Mention snow and people go nuts!
Get a grip. Forecast models project that far out because they can, not because they’re good at it!
As it turns out, this morning’s GFS says, “Snow? What snow?.”
When I look at the models, especially when I see something unusual, I try and remember there’s a reason some events seldom happen–like Connecticut snow before Halloween. Climatology enters into the mix.
Of course unusual things (Halloween snow, Hurricane Sandy) do happen. Unfortunately the computer guidance promises a lot more often than it delivers.
There’s a joke among meteorologists about one overpredicting weather company that’s forecast a hundred of the last ten inches of snow!
Even here in SoCal I’ve got to be careful about the unusual happening. There was a story in this morning’s Irvine World News about the two inches of snow that fell here in 1949! It was also noted in an earlier Coast Magazine article.
Operations at Marine Air Station El Toro¹ stopped. No equipment to deal with winter!
There probably won’t be snow in Connecticut next week, nor snow here in Irvine this winter. Probably, not definitely.
¹ – El Toro was closed in 1999. It’s now the Orange County Great Park, under a mile from my house.