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.)