Saturday, February 19, 2011

Somethings to clear up as we got flooded with emails this late evening an ealry morning.

Ok the office got flooded from 9 PM through 12:30 AM with emails as to why we are not issuing a snowfall map. So to make life easier I will address the emails here.


Ok as stated in the cbox models have shifted the storm system a little more Northwards this is per the 0z runs. So what this has done as lowered the snowfall amount in my Southern zones. If this trend keeps up this would also lower snowfall amounts in my central areas. After a rather long discussion with Dirk on this we have determined that is was best not to issue a snowfall map based on the 0z runs. We are going to hold until the 12z runs to see what happens. Our text has this covered well with the 6 to 12 inches. Now in our Southern zones it would like 2 to 4 inches per latest computer model output. This will lead to more of a mixtures in them areas. We feel it’s pointless to waste our time issuing a map when time is still on our side. Our forecasted has the amounts to make people aware of what could happen. If we would have issued a map it would have had to be changed based on the latest data. Each storm system is different. With the way the models have handled this from the get go to now we can’t justified the map. Now if there was a little more agreement from the start a map would have been issued. So as of now confidence level is still low on snowfall totals.We will see how the 06z runs look and if we feel things won’t change by 12z runs we will issue our map.We don't care if another site is "jumping the gun with their map" as many of you have put it. They may have more time to change their map a few times a day we don't know, nor do we care. We are to busy looking at the model data a real time data to bring you our forecasts.

Now onto the other question. “why did we say 6 to 12 inches of snow possible when no one other site or NWS made no mention of it until hrs after your forecast?” or just said 6" possible?

Well I can’t really answer this one, why the other sites or NWS didn’t. We felt the 6 to 12 inch range was a safe way to run. Still is for most of the forecast area. Just not in the Southern zones as of now. To be frank with everyone we don’t read any forecasts until after we issue ours, then we still may not read any. We know about the watches and warnings through programs we use and through our phones.

As far as the other blogs take it up with them is all we are going to say on this one, we will longer answer questions about other blogs. Like Dirk said before "there shall no longer be pissing contests on this blog." I agree with him. So if you have any problems you need to go to the blog you are having problems with and let the blog owner know not us..Not trying to be a jerk here, but folks when we got a storm system to deal with we just don't have the time to read pointless emails or complaints about other forecasting sites. Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
We do thank you for being great viewers of our site!

Forecaster Paul>>>