Posted on 01/04/2018 5:38:28 PM PST by nickcarraway
We’ve gotten better, but there are still a lot of calculations at play.
How much is it going to snow Thursday? As a meteorologist, the bane of my existence is predicting snow. It is the most difficult forecast I make with dozens of different ways it can go wrong. More troubling, it’s probably the forecast most scrutinized before and after the fact.
But why? What is it about snow that makes it so tough to pin down?
Though temperatures at ground level are important, the critical numbers for assessing snowfall are much higher up in the atmosphere. We’re looking for ice crystal growth, which happens when the air is wet enough and cold enough—sometimes down to -20° Fahrenheit, though the biggest snow growth happens at somewhat warmer temperatures.
The ice crystals start small, but as they collide, they grow, until finally they’re large enough and heavy enough to fall to Earth. Snow is water plus air—air being very important. It’s the fluff factor, the reason an inch of water can be 5 inches of snow or 30 inches or something in between. The snow liquid ratio, or SLR, is different for every storm (high SLRs are good for skiing, bad for snowballs). And that’s what we’re trying to predict—how much liquid is going to produce how much snow.
Most snowstorms are driven by low pressure systems hundreds of miles across. Around the low, warm air rises and cools. That causes water vapor in the air to condense and form clouds. Liquid droplets come next until gravity and temperature begin to dominate. For those who live in snow belts there’s a second method to produce snow, the lake effect. Assessing these two methods of snow production should allow you to get a good idea of how much snow to expect, but often
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
But we are all CERTAIN that your models predicting a 1.5342 degree C rise in 100 years are dead accurate.
“Why Are We So Bad at Predicting How Much Snow We’ll Get?”
Because God confounds you to remind you that you’re human and intrinsically fallible.
Suck it up, buttercups.
I blame Slate.
you said what I was going to!
I woke up this morning with a 4-6 inch forecast in my area and on that basis, I was planning to travelling to my Manhattan office. I then looked outside and realized that the forecast was going to be dead wrong. So I stayed home. And glad I did because we got well over a foot and my area here in Southern Connecticut is paralyzed. Eventually the upgraded the forecast to 8-14 inches but that was after most of the snow had already fallen.
And yet they want us to give billions of dollars to "stop" global warming? Even if global warming was actually true, how do they propose to stop it? What will those billions of dollars be used for?
At six o’clock P.M. last night Philly meteorologists were dealing with four weather models predicting anywhere from 0 inches snowfall in the city to 10 inches - so they took the average of about 5 inches, which turned out to be just about right - brilliant.....
When I was a kid in St. Louis, there was a TV weatherman named Jim Bolen who, one winter evening, gave a forecast of partly cloudy. A few hours later a huge snowstorm hit the area, Bolen couldn’t make it home and, when he did get home, he said there was a foot of “partly cloudy” waiting to be shoveled off his driveway.
Is an after-the-fact "forecast" actually a "backcast"? On the bright side, their backcasts are never wrong.
Actually, even that isn't true with liberals. Election Night 2016, 9 PM. "Our models predict that Hillary Clinton has a 98% chance of being the next President of the United States."
Now that's a Wishcast!
We have a meteorologist in our office that once predicted 0-12” of snow.
I pointed out that the forecast would probably be correct for 364/365 days of the year.
Good odds for the seers. Shades of Jean Dixon. ;)
Probably use the same company they use to predict which flu type to make flu vaccines!
But these idiots know for sure when the arctic ice will be gone.
Back in the early 1990s here in Eastern California, our weatherman predicted “mostly sunny skies” for the following day in early March. We got two feet plus of snow. He was shocked!
Because there are so many variables involved and weather is a dynamic system.
Um, maybe because God plan’s it that way? Jus’ sayin’...
Predicting the “future” is impossible! You can only GUESS. Even if your prediction turns out to be correct, it’s still a lucky guess.
2 + 2 = 4. No variables. Weather predicting, millions of variables.
Meteorology....The only profession where you still get paid when wrong.
Don’t forget that the warming of the earth will suddenly flood downtown Manhattan.
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