A little ‘inside baseball’ on weather forecasting. The graphs on the left (Courtesy: coolwx.com – click the image for a better look) show Wednesday’s weather in New Haven as forecast over time by various computer models.
The ‘ptype’ forecast has been all over the place. What’s it gonna be? The guidance has waffled between snow, sleet and freezing rain.
Even if I got it right on the last forecast, it was little consolation to those who’d watched earlier. That made me very unhappy. Sometimes there’s no choice but to change the forecast. You can’t feel married to it.
I traded tweets with a former co-worker this week who shares my angst. It really made storm nights, hell.
Most people don’t realize the most important part of the forecast is, impact. There are fewer potential impacts than storm parameters.
If the timing is right… if the road hazards/conditions are right… if the school situation is properly handled, then how much snow falls or whether it’s a freezing sleety mix don’t matter as much.
But it killed me every storm. There was never a forecast I was really happy with. Not one.