> Sadly, I don't remember which of the two was closer to reality. And to be
> completely honest, I'm not sure I recall accurately what was said about the
> two models.
The same was true with the aviation forecasts. Most of the aviation
models predicted it just fine, but aviation forecasts don't generally
include accumulations. They predicted the track pretty
closely--especially for the upper-air data.
What's hard about this particular type of storm system is that it's a
result of two lows coming together. The exact time and place of the
merge is tough to get any closer than two to four hours. The problem
is that for a given location on the ground, the difference of four
hours can mean wind and rain, or blizzard.
These "storms of the century" are misleading. A "storm of the century"
means that in any given year you have a 1% chance of getting one of
that intensity at any given location. Over a large enough area, the
chance of getting a storm of the century is more like 20%. That 20%
seems to track pretty well with actual occurrences. Every five years
or so, some region of the USA will get blasted and localized places
will have their century storm.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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