Memo to the weatherman: don’t worry about confusing us, just give us your most reliable forecast.
The day after Winter Storm Stella failed to deliver the wallop that had been forecast for the big cities in the Northeast, the National Weather Service admitted that meteorologists analyzing the latest computer models Monday afternoon concluded that the snowfall would be significantly less than predicted in some areas.
But that news was not revealed because they feared it would confuse the public. NWS meteorologists in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington held a conference call and decided not to downgrade the predicted snowfall in the metropolitan areas. “Out of extreme caution we decided to stick with the higher amounts,” Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations at the Weather Prediction Center in suburban Maryland told the Associated Press.
Carbin said the meteorologists decided that the late call for less snow might have left the impression that the storm was no longer a threat. It was, but the danger had shifted to ice and sleet in cities like New York City and Washington, he said. “The nature of the beast is that there’s always uncertainty in every forecast and we have to get better at describing that.”
That we understand. Predicting storms is a complicated business and there are many variables that can change as the weather approaches. In the case of Stella, the rain-snow line shifted inland, which meant that more places saw an earlier changeover to rain and sleet than originally forecast, reducing the snow totals.
We accept that Mother Nature is fickle. But in this age of fake news and alternative facts, we expect the weatherman to be truthful — let us know if we’re going to be sliding on ice, rather than slogging through 2 feet of snow. Either way, we understand the dangers of a winter storm with temperatures below freezing, winds gusting at more than 50 mph and precipitation falling all day.
Making sure that everyone has the most up-to-date, accurate forecasts is also critical for communities as they prepare for a storm. Should they deploy a larger than normal fleet of plows, or plan for a combination of deicing and plowing?
Despite the changing computer models, forecasters Monday night still were predicting one of the worst March storms in history — “wreaking havoc in the entire Northeast corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston.” Up to 20 inches of snow was forecast for New York City, which prompted comparisons to the Blizzard of 1888, which dumped nearly 3 feet of snow on the Big Apple. In fact, only about seven inches of snow fell in New York City and Boston.
Elsewhere, Stella lived up to the more severe forecasts, with 20 inches of snow recorded in Huntington, more than 30 inches in some parts of Vermont and up to 42 inches in upstate New York.
Expecting meteorologists to always be right is unrealistic. But we expect nothing less than the truth when the weather pro knows there is good reason to change the forecast.