Wednesday, March 06, 2013

How Did The 7-Day Forecasts Do?




The above graphics show the 7-day surface pressure and 1000-500mb thickness forecasts by the GFS (top) and the ECMWF (bottom). The middle panel shows this evening's verification according to the NAM analysis. The ECMWF was very accurate at such long-range, clearly much better than the GFS. However, at short-terms, things went substantially awry. The thickness forecasts indicated snow for D.C. and indeed the entire government was shutdown today because of expected snow. However, the snowstorm stayed out to the west and warmer air from the Atlantic kept the event mostly rain in D.C. There will probably be lots of Monday morning quarterbacking regarding the forecast and the shutdown. Of course, the shutdown meant little within the halls of our paralyzed Congress!

No comments:

Post a Comment