Give them an inch…

 

Let’s follow the story of a storm…

Friday – Online media sources are tracking activity in the Pacific Ocean that current models project is likely to bring a storm to the area next week. Look for it to arrive Wednesday into Thursday, have the potential to deliver well over a foot of snow, and understand it is still too early to say if this storm will actually be a threat.

Saturday – Absolutely no signs in local media coverage at all of a mid-week storm.

Sunday – Reports show up that indicate modeling has the storm developing, but moving on a pattern that will strike more to the south with results being between a trace and an inch of snow for the area.

Monday into Tuesday – Updates showing a route of the storm where the highest intensity of snowfall will take place from the central to eastern portion of southern Pennsylvania heading northeast over Rhode Island toward Boston and eastern Massachusetts. The hardest hit areas could see just shy of two-feet of snow.

Tuesday evening – Uh-oh, storm shifted and here comes 6-10 inches of snow to us. (Enjoy!)

Thursday morning – Welcome to Binghamton, New York! In that region, for three hours overnight, the accumulation arrived at five or more inches per hour. More than three feet on the ground at sunrise.

Ok. You got me. I added the enjoy part to Tuesday. And Binghamton is a side note that didn’t matter to where we live. We ended up with around six inches of snow. But the rest of that charting, even in my words, is pretty close to dead on accurate. In fact, I’m sure I did hear a forecaster or two mention that significant snowfall might be good fun. Just don’t tie me down to that one. (Especially if you live in Binghamton.) Still… back to the main path of this essay…

There are times I don’t get weather forecasting. But, I’ve said it before, it’s a thankless and potentially impossible job that deserves respect.

I’ve been told about an old rule for pilots that basically says if you are traveling in a straight line, and you are off your intended path by one degree, you will be one mile from your destination after sixty miles. It’s known as the one in sixty rule, and it provides a decent jumping off point for us.

The United States is roughly 2,800-miles from coast to coast. So that Pacific Ocean storm we started off with? If you modeled it while off the west coast, for every degree off the projected path it moved, the center of the storm by the time it hit the east coast would be about 47-miles away from where it had been predicted.

47-miles. That doesn’t sound like too much. But hold on…

That’s 47-miles for each degree of movement. Just a degree. If I placed you anywhere on the west coast of this country, blindfolded you, and told you to walk to the other coast, you’d likely be thrilled to only be off target by about 47-miles. Point being, predictions that fall within one to three degrees of accurate are pretty darn impressive…

And yet, 47-miles alone to a storm is a major difference in the amount that falls. When you start bringing into account elevation, nearby bodies of water, temperature and any number of assorted other random contributing factors that can change a storms pattern or the precipitation amounts that fall… yeah… a storm that was supposed to move directly overhead now being 47-miles away can mean a huge difference.

So, it’s not really the forecasts that upset me. I’m often amazed by the meteorologists I watch and the work they do.

Instead, it’s how whacky the predictions swung like a pendulum and where the results (and the snow) ultimately landed.

You know that rundown I kicked things off with. Well, consider this conversation being twisted from the progression:

Friday – “Hey, it’s going to snow and you might want to pay attention. Snow blower levels on the way.”

Sunday – “Oops, my bad. Dusting. Might be able to clear it with ten minutes and a shovel if you need to head outside at all.”

Monday – “It’s just the start of the season, so we’ll get our snow. But look at those folks in New England that are about to get walloped.”

Tuesday – “Whoa whoa whoa, get ready. Milk, bread and gas for the vehicles we’re about to get significant accumulation.”

It just feels wrong. Doesn’t it?

I mean, we’re getting information in real time and that needs to be acknowledged. As the projections change and forecasts are adjusted, so is the presentation. There should be a bit of understanding granted for that.

I suppose.

But for this storm, I felt like I was on the highway. Speed limit is 65 and I have the cruise control set accordingly as I travel along at a steady pace in light traffic. Just ahead of me though, there’s a car… left blinker on, even though the car is changing lanes by moving to the right… then back two lanes to the left… then one lane to the right… back to the left… all the way to the right… blinker still saying left-left-left, eventually back to the exact lane I first saw it traveling in. That’s an awful lot of movement to change absolutely nothing.

Predict an inch and the storm will give you a foot. (So, to prepare for the next dusting, check your snowblower and have some gas ready. But whatever you do, don’t believe the hype, unless it has it’s blinker on.)

 

If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me at Bob@inmybackpack.com