Monday And Tuesday In Nebraska

This is my Saturday afternoon call. A little more for Northeast Nebraska, a little less in the south, especially south of I-80. The track will doubtless shift a little again.

snow-fcstBack in Buffalo, my friend Jeff Lapides told me about working in a men’s store when he was younger. He was taught to bring out fewer, not more suits. Too many confuses the customer. Too many makes it tougher to close the sale.

I often think about that story when I look at weather data for upcoming storms. There is too much data for one person to choose! Not only do we have computer models, we have models that remodel the modeled data!

Don’t get me wrong. I used to get weather data on a 300 baud dial-up connection. I’m not looking to return.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

plotter

The graph shows 12 different solutions to Monday/Tuesday’s storm. They range from 6 to 14 inches. Thanks.

Those are just today’s runs. If previous days were added it would look a lot worse! The center of the path has shifted south and now north. Bad data in the wrong place (or good data in an unseen place) can send the models in the wrong direction.

Up to now our data was limited. The center of this storm is still out in the Pacific where weather observations are sparse. It won’t make landfall until tomorrow.

In spite of my complaining, what we have in 2016 is light years ahead of what I worked with in ’82. The models are much more insightful, not offering a perfect solution but giving good useful, actionable information days out. Nebraskan’s have known (and planned for) this storm for nearly a week. That’s a lot of power we didn’t have in the past.

When was the last time you were surprised by a storm? That speaks to our progress better than anything else.

At some point a human has to take over and make a diagnosis (our models are referred to as diagnostic tools). I pick and choose based on my experience in analogous situations. When the models showed this in the past, what really happened?

This is my Saturday afternoon call. A little more for Northeast Nebraska, a little less in the south, especially south of I-80. The track will doubtless shift a little again. I’m confident it will snow and snow enough to have an impact. Exactly how much is another story.

3 thoughts on “Monday And Tuesday In Nebraska”

  1. Geoff…I sure it is a tough forecast. However, I think the folks up in the Northern Plains are very ready for severe winter weather, unlike places on the East and West Coast. I’m sure no matter what happens, they will take it all in stride and know enough to keep an eye on the changing forecasts.

    Back here in the Tri-State area, have not been to the city yet, so I don’t know, but 95% of the snow in southern Connecticut and Long Island is GONE. Only a few small snow plies remain. We are headed for 50 F today and 55 F on Monday as rain might pull through the Tri-State/Mid Atlantic states by mid week. 4 weeks left…and meterological winter 2015/2016 is history!

  2. Geoff…just to give you another weather update from the Tri-State area:

    We hit 61 F in New Haven today….Central Park hit 62 F ….and Newark and Willamantic, CT hit 63 F!

    The snow is 100% gone!

    We walked at Ocean Beach today and it felt like Bermuda out there!

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