3 ms·
The recent snow storm in my area, 4 days in advance they were predicting 30cm of snow. 3.5 days in advance were 25cm of now. 3 days in advanced 15cm of snow. 2
by sleepysysadmin 8y ago
The recent snow storm in my area, 4 days in advance they were predicting 30cm of snow. 3.5 days in advance were 25cm of now. 3 days in advanced 15cm of snow. 2 days in advanced 5-10cm of snow. 1 day in advance 15cm of snow. We got about 10cm of snow.
Sorry but that's stunningly inaccurate.
- RivieraKid 8y agoWhich model? Try ECMWF on windy.com, that's usually the most accurate one for long-term.
- usermac 8y agoWow, what a nice looking weather website. Thanks. Didn't know about it.
- AuthorizedCust 8y agoWhile that's an anecdote, it's true too often for me to feel that forecasts are "stunningly accurate". That label implies near-perfection, which is laughable.
- simonh 8y ago4 days in advance they correctly predicted you would get snow and that it would be on the order of tens of centimeters thick. That's really good. Over the intervening days they revised their estimate down and the snowfall was eventually lower than the initial estimate so the accuracy improved. Their final estimate was again correct that you did get snow, which is the key prediction, and they even got the depth at your precise location right to within 33%. That's fantastic, and far better than was possible for the vast majority of my lifetime. Also, the fact that their predictions were all rounded to the nearest 5cm should give you a clue at the expected accuracy and granularity of the final prediction. Missing the target by only one 'unit' of measure is pretty decent.
- scott_s 8y agoThere's also the fact that predicting amount of snow is particularly difficult because the same amount of water will yield vastly different snowfalls with single-degree deviations of the temperature.