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Four'easter proved no three'easter
By adamg on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 8:43am
"The hell am i supposed to do with all this leftover French toast?" Steve Saleeba asks.
"There ended up being just too much dry air in the lower to mid levels of the atmosphere to support much snow across southern New England," the National Weather Service explains.
Still, the storm had its moments:
High tide on Turner Road in #Scituate MA @doogs1227 @universalhub @Tami_Tucci @Dutyron @pbyrond @danyexplorer @DaveInOsaka @ayascope92 @kanji_k @darealgreglopez pic.twitter.com/Wf4VU2U8AZ
— Rick Macomber (@boston_camera) March 22, 2018
Snow squal as the storm makes its last gasp. @universalhub pic.twitter.com/UERfix5tgt
— johnmcboston (@johnmcboston) March 22, 2018
The snow has (finally) arrived. #belmont #snow #foureaster @universalhub @ericfisher pic.twitter.com/OyyEin0yG8
— Marc Hurwitz (@MarcHurBoston) March 22, 2018
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Comments
Armchair Meteorologist
Without fail, every time they predict the temperatures being 34º or higher, the storm turns out to be a complete non-issue. Every year this happens -- they predict above freezing temps but also give possible accumulation of many inches. And every year, they are correct with the temperature and wrong with the accumulation.
For sure, there's more involved and the totals could be higher. But for the past 20 years the "above freezing, no snow" rule of thumb has been reliable for Boston.
34F where?
It was 31 and ice where I live. Would have been a very tough commute if the schools were open - and very dangerous for school buses.
Ice ice ice - something New England hasn't gotten used to yet. It isn't all about snow.
Where do you live?
It barely touched freezing in Medford (predictions were accurate) and didn't stay there long. When I came into Boston at 6:30am even the bike paths were fine and the roads were only wet. Traffic was the same as always.
The bigger problem is the sidewalks and intersections still not cleared from the storm two weeks ago.
Last week
Are you forgetting the blizzard from last week? Temps were the same then as yesterday at the start of the storm, and only dropped because heavy snow can actually lower temperatures.
International weather reports
I don't have an opinion or conspiracy theory about this, just find it weird:
I check the weather on a foreign web site because it's in my home language and igives the temp in celsius. This web site predicted exactly this weather , consistently, all week- no big deal, maybe some snow or rain. My spouse likes weather.gov and his outlook on the weather has been completely different all week.
I had assumed that they all work off the same basic data and models.
Different models
You can google something like "us vs european weather models" to read about the difference. (I did and was just reading a few links to confirm that they're different models.) But I remember reading in the past that one difference is that the Europeans have better computers so they can run more intricate models (more data points) — over the years they've been funded better than our National Weather Service.
One problem
The European forecasts specialize in Europe, as do the European models.
Place counts.
And yet ...
A lot of American forecasters seem to prefer it over the American GFS.
Yes, and
How accurate are their forecasts?
How was it on the last two
How was it on the last two storms before this?
I tend to look at weather.gov and darksky.net
Darksky had the the prediction right for this storm, (inch maybe 2) but was WAY low and the last two. Calling for 6-8 inches at most for the big storm (15 I think?) last week and 1-2 for the 8inches or so we got the week before.
I know there are two big weather modeling sources, both the weather.gov version and the European Agency, so it is possible your source is more dependent on the Euro model. But if IRRC the Euromodel had the last storm right.
*shrug*
I definitely am curious why the models were so wrong this time though.
Similarities between Three and Four
Both had forecasts that were basically, well, all over the map initially: The computer models kept changing as to whether we'd get hit hard, get missed completely or something in the middle. It was enough to induce vertigo. I guess this is a common problem with March nor'easters.
Two differences: Three, in fact, did hit us hard, with a lot of snow and enough wind to have an official blizzard declared for Boston, while Four, well, just look out the window. Also, even at the peak of the Fourcasts (like when it looked like we could get more than a Bouchard of snow), all of the forecasters said the storm would be nowhere near as bad as Three.
Meanwhile
Three pretty much missed NYC, while four plastered it.
weather.gov
The forecast on weather.gov was consistently predicting 80% chance of precipitation for Wednesday, even while giving possible snow totals in the 6-12 inch range. You've got to look at both numbers.
Until Wed. AM
Then the W.gov forecast went down to 2-4".
Kind of, but not quite
I was following their forecasts. At about 9AM they were still claiming 11 inches, but that quickly dropped to 9. It got down to an estimate of 6 inches by suppertime. By bedtime I'm not sure, but I think they were still claiming 5 inches, which is a good amount, but compared to what they were saying a day earlier was nothing.
More like no'easter am i rite
(sorry)
Even the locals forecasts varied
I was flicking around about 6:45pm last night and one guy (sorry I forget which station) said that he didn't think the snow would accumulate on the streets in the city. The ground would be too warm for it to really stick, he said, but that it would stay on grassy/snowy surfaces. Others were still calling for 5-8 inches. The fact that one guy basically said, "The roads will be fine" made me assume he would be correct (and he was.) There IS something to the fact that "Noreaster!" boosts ratings while, "It'll miss us" tends to cause TVs to be shut off.
Snore'easter
Meteorologist Dave Epstein discusses why the forecasts went so wrong
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/22/how-did-forecasters-get-this...
"The hell am i supposed to do
I'd suggest soaking it in some sort of brandy or cognac, or rum. Might be the base of an interesting desert - bread pudding or poor man's tiramisu.