Winter '17 / '18 - Snow Storm #1: Close Call
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| Valley Forge ... PA 16-DEC-70 |
This has been especially true over the years for primarily rain events featuring a ribbon of accumulating snows along the NW edge of the precipitation shield.
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Call it a failure of numerical weather prediction.
Call it a failure of operational weather forecasters.
Call it Banana-Bana ... BO-Bana ... FE-FI ... FO-fanna ...
Either way ... the 19th Annual NEWxSFC awaits its inaugural event for Winter '17 / '18.
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But did anyone ... anywhere ... get it right three days out?
Why ... yes. 'Someone' did get it right.
The 06/12z NAM ... of all things ... kinda nailed it (GFS was all along ... all in on all liquid).
Image courtesy MeteoCentre
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Logistically ... the deadline for this storm would have been FRI evening given snow was expected to begin over the forecast area by early SAT AM. With a FRI deadline ... the 'Call for Forecasts' would have been issued THU evening. The NCEP forecast at that time called for 10% chance for at least 4" over interior VA stations and a 10% chance for at least 4" along the coasts of NJ continuing into SNE.
As outlined in this post from 2016 ... issuing a 'Call for Forecasts' is not a trivial matter.
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Had this been the Day3 NCEP prog ... there would have been more than enough lead time to issue the call and the season would be up and running.
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1 comment:
With the benefits of 'hindsight being 20/20'........
I spent some time this morning looking at the CF6 links on the contest web site and noticed the storm was already firing its opening salvos upon two of the southernmost stations used for the contest on Friday evening. RDU checked in with 0.3 inches and RIC reported a whopping 2.4 inches. Probably would have needed to issue a Call For Forecasts back on Wednesday night in order to capture the snowfall data from the two aforementioned stations.
Just saw your Call For Forecasts; hoping the clipper system approaching is kind enough to make up for this past weekend.
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