Saturday, January 24, 2015

Another Bizarre Forecast From NWS, Eastern Region

Tuesday...A chance of rain and snow showers before 3pm, then a chance of rain showers between 3pm and 4pm, then a chance of snow showers after 4pm. Cloudy, with a high near 35. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
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Above is a forecast from mid-day today (Saturday, January 24th) for a grid point in West Virginia. The forecast states that there is a chance for rain showers and no snow for one hour from 3 to 4 pm. It would be extremely difficult to be that precise for the day one forecast - but this forecast is for day four - Tuesday, January 27th. From my perspective, a truly absurd forecast to convey to the public.
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David Blanchard commented: What likely happened is that the afternoon surface temperature grids warmed beyond some threshold and the text formatter switched to a different precipitation type. It's unlikely that any forecaster actually generated this text deliberately -- and this is the problem with the formatters generating text from grids. Too many grids to be able to catch these...

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