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.