Bounce back

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

Bowling Green was in the clutches of our first dose of Arctic air when we visited on Friday, but the weekend provided respite. High temperatures surged into the 60s on Sunday, touching a total that was even warmer than forecasts indicated. Of course, this week it’s all coming back down again, but for the days that counted, Bowling Green was able to enjoy the balmy conditions. The atypically warm Weatherbug had the top forecast for the day.
Actuals: Saturday – High 52, Low 25
Sunday – High 66, Low 39

Grade: B-C

Clouds come close

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen often in the Front Range, and a city like Cheyenne, but it did early this week. The models did really well with the temperature forecasts, and forecasts were generally pretty good. If there was one thing that everyone got wrong, it was the clouds southeast Wyoming saw overnight. On the back of a strong upper level jet, layers of clouds developed, abutting the higher terrain and trapping warmer air overnight, leading to low temperatures that were warmer than forecast lows both on Monday and Tuesday. Weatherbug was undeterred, and collected the best forecast.
Actuals: Monday – High 42, Low 32
Tuesday – High 54, Low 31

Grade: B-D

Smoke from a not so distant fire

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

I used the current fire map for the LA area as the image in the forecast for Santa Barbara to give a little perspective on the threat in the region as we started to look at the forecast. Even a few days later, the picture is wholly different, with some fires contained, some extinguished and more underway. Santa Barbara did seem to avert the worst of the fires this go around, though there was smoke reported most of the day on Friday as the Getty blaze raged and coupled with easterly winds. Victoria-Weather and Accuweather combined to net the top forecast in the area.
Actuals: Friday – High 73, Low 38
Saturday – High 78, Low 40

Grade: B-F

One off

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

Madera was the first of our trio of California forecasts this past week, and was the city the farthest from fire danger. It came down to how temperatures were handled by forecast guidance. Victoria-Weather was off the forecast by one degree on every verifying time by one degree, low every time. That’s just as tough to do as getting the forecast exactly right, I would say. The Weather Channel was off by a couple of degrees at two different times, and V-W and TWC ended up with a tie in Madera.
Actuals: Tuesday – High 69, Low 36
Wednesday – High 67, Low 34

Grade: A-B

Did you forget about the clear skies?

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

Victoria-Weather stumbled on the forecast high last Friday in Toledo, but we came in hot for the Saturday morning lows and totally redeemed ourselves. Or should I say, we came in cold, remembering what happens with clear skies overnight, especially when coupled with a north wind. The low was even cooler than we forecast, but we had the coolest morning low on Saturday, allowing us to catch up with The Weather Channel and Accuweather, who were a bit better on that Friday high, for a three way draw.
Actuals: Friday, High 59, low 36
Saturday – High 65, Low 35

Grade: B – C

Between two storms

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

Last weekend was a wet one in New England, and then, perhaps you heard, there was a ‘bomb’ cyclone later in this past week. As is often our luck, when we pulled the forecast for Boston, we found it between the two wet and windy spells. Temperatures were comfortable, especially without wind or rain. Speaking of comfortable, Victoria-Weather won this forecast… comfortably.
Actuals: Sunday, High 67, Low 53
Monday – High 64, Low 52

Grade : A-C

Weekend Warmth

Anthony Dunkel Leave a comment

The weekend forecast for College Station, TX was pretty straightforward: Hot and dry. That’s pretty much how it panned out as well. The only hitch in the forecast’s giddy-up was that the overnight lows were just a smidge higher than some had expected. Oh well, I doubt too many people were complaining about it being 74 instead of 72. Weatherbug narrowly edged out NWS/WN for the victory.

Saturday: High 97, Low 74.
Sunday: High 94, Low 74.
Forecast Grade: A

The Appalachians and the heat

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

Usually, when you think of mountains, you think of snow capped peaks and chilly air. In Greensboro last week, they were directly responsible for temperatures not cooling off as quickly as it could have. cold air was rushing south from the Great Lakes, but got hung up in the mountains. Southerly flow with humid air produced clouds and a bit of rain that certainly allowed for a cooldown, but not quite on the order forecast by our model guidance for Friday. Weatherbug had a blend of a good temperature forecast, and were one of only three that had rain in the forecast on Thursday.
Actuals: Thursday – .01 inches of rain, High 95, Low 72
Friday – .01 inches of rain, High 82, Low 72

Grade: A-C

It’s all the same

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

We took a look at the central Valley in California early last week, and it was a pretty tough verification. Not, perhaps, in the way you think. Fresno wasn’t going to see much weather, and it’s position on the west coast led the lot of us forecasters to rely heavily on model guidance. As a result, there was a FIVE way tie at top of the leaderboard, and the other two outlets, The Weather Channel and Weatherbug were only a degree behind. The trend was for a cooler Tuesday than models indicated, so the forecasts were consistent, they were consistently too warm.
Actuals: Monday High 102, Low 72
Tuesday – High 99, Low 70

Grade: B

Unbreakable

Ryan Henning Leave a comment

The forecast in Monroe seemed promising. There was a little bit of rain in the early part of Wednesday, but then the heat was supposed to break. It certainly did not. Instead, high temperatures remained in the mid 90s, which was just as hot as it was before a weak cold front slid through. The National Weather Service and Weathernation weren’t optimistic about a cool down, and ended up claiming a forecast victory.
Actuals: Wednesday – Thunderstorms reported, not measured, High 95, Low 72
Thursday – High 95, Low 70

Grade: C