from Victoria-Weather
This has been a tough time in American history, and in Bremerton, Washington, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the weather decided to mimic the mood. It was cloudy and drizzly across Puget Sound through the middle of the week, exactly the solemn and somber atmosphere this era needs. The Weather Channel and Weatherbug ended up sharing honors.
Actuals: Tuesday – .31 inches of rain, High 45, Low 37
Wednesday – .15 inches of rain, High 49, Low 32
Grade: B – C
For most of us, a hundredth of an inch of rain is pretty inconsequential. In a place like Tucson, though, it is out of the ordinary, and forecasters should definitely attempt to account for any threat of it. Mea culpa. Last week, on the 8th, a hundredth of an inch did indeed fall on the city, which almost everyone handled correctly. It was a pretty snug forecast otherwise, a trend we have definitely been experiencing this year, and The Weather Channel ended up edging the competition.
Actuals: Sunday, March 8th, .01 inches of rain, High 66, Low 51
Monday – High 75, Low 44
Grade: B-C
Actuals: Tuesday – Trace of
Wednesday – 1.23 inches of rain, High 64, Low 49
Grade: A-C
To start the month of March, we were monitoring the forecast in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There wasn’t much to it, honestly, with high pressure over the region and — wait, light rain overnight? I call shenanigans. Actually, specifically, I call out the tendency for the ASOS in the Hattiesburg office for suggesting mist when there often isn’t any. It tends to fog in pretty severely in Hattiesburg, but the actual condensate is harder to verify as legitimate precipitation.
I digress. Nobody had , true or not, in the forecast, so we can comfortably say that Victoria-Weather collected the victory.
Actuals: Saturday – High 71, Low 31
Sunday – High 71, Low 39
Grade: B-C
Over the weekend, there was a report from CBS that labeled lake effect snow as a “snow firehose” and claimed it was very rare. Anyone who lives east or south of the Great Lakes know that this is decidedly untrue. If it WAS true and it happened over the weekend then Rochester would have been in the “overspray” area, collecting only a trace on Friday and 1-2″ on Saturday. Now the wind, that was something, especially on Friday, where they got 30mph gusts. Maybe that was the firehose? Victoria-Weather and the Weather Service collected the top forecast.
Actuals: Friday – Trace of snow, High 26, low 22
Saturday – 1-2″ of snow, High 23, low 12
Grade: B-C
Monday turned out to be miserable in central South Carolina. A round of heavy rain moved north and into the Columbia area early on in the day, and didn’t allow Columbia to come up for air at any point. Monday only saw a 3 degree spread from high to low as they collected35 inches of rain through the day. The Weather Channel has continued their solid month with a victory in the South Carolina state capital.
Actuals: Sunday, High 62, Low 30
Monday – .35 inches of rain, High 51, Low 38
Grade: B-C
The Upper Midwest has had a consistent, cyclical pattern of late, generally transpiring over the course of a week or so. Warm over the weekend and through the early part of the week, then the threat of a little bit of precipitation, very cold by Thursday and warming up again for the weekend. It’s happening this week, and it happened last week in Green Bay. Forecasters generally saw that pattern and latched on to it in their forecast. The issue came down to temperature, as forecasters were a couple degrees too warm for where this cycle ended up falling in line. There was a three way tie atop the standings in the end, with the Weather Service, Weather Nation and Forecast.io splitting the winning share.
Actuals: Thursday – High 15, Low -7
Friday – High 31, Low 3
Grade: B
We needed to rely heavily on model guidance for our forecast in San Jose, thanks to tricky terrain and a dearth of information to the west. Some of it is still instinct, however, and many people shouldn’t have trusted theirs. On Monday, skies cleared a bit thanks to a brisk northwest wind, and temperatures popped into the 70s, but that was the only real forecast surprise for model adherents. Victoria-Weather and The Weather Channel collected the top spot, which is interesting, because the robot forecaster actually ended up last.
Actuals: Monday – High 71, Low 48
Tuesday – High 69, low 45
Grade: B-C
Early in February, shortly after the Super Bowl, the east coast was enjoying a warm stretch, but colder air loomed on the other side of the Appalachians. The leading edge of the ridge was going to bring a little bit of rain, though it wasn’t expected to be much, with low pressure developing in the southern US. Unfortunately for forecasters and residents of Salisbury, where we were forecasting way back on the 4th, things developed just
Actuals: Tuesday, Feb. 5th,
Wednesday, Feb. 6th., .73″ of rain, High 56, Low 44
Grade: C-D
We had a forecast at the beginning of the month for Ocala that we still haven’t checked back in on yet. A cold front had barged through the Peninsula, but I’m happy to report there was a very quick and full recovery, particularly of the afternoon highs. Temperatures in central Florida during the winter can get a little chilly, however, and undoubtedly, residents of Ocala were freaking out at the near freezing lows on the 2nd and 3rd.
Actuals:
Monday, Feb 3rd, High 75, Low 36
Grade: B-C