Missed Opportunity

The deadline for Contest #2 is Saturday evening but in hindsight...it should have been Thursday evening given the respectable amount of snow that fell across SNE today.

Always hate to miss a good opportunity to hold a forecasting contest...especially given the dearth of decent events the past few years.

The NAM/s 00z Wednesday run continued it/s previous scenario for a marginal contest event (less than six (6) stations; nuisance snowfall) across the forecast area. The 12z GFS had shown good continuity from earlier runs but b/c we/re inside 48HRS...model consensus is an important factor when deciding whether an event is contest-worthy. NCEP and ALR/s servers were jammed Tuesday evening when the 00z Wednesday runs were posted and the GFS was not accessable.

Next go'round...when there/s uncertainty about how the event might unfold...a 'call for forecasts' will be issued and if it later becomes apparent the storm is heading for the crapper...the contest will be canceled.