keeping them honest
Posted on Mar 08, 2010 by Landon in Snowboarding, Surfing
There’s a potentially massive storm brewing off the coast that I’ve been watching slowly build over the last few days. I’ve received phone calls, facebook messages, emails and tweets hyping it up from friends and fans of the site. And it’s looking like it could be a good one. Everything is lining up nice too. The temperature on the mountain is down below freezing because it’s been so clear outside this last week, and the storm is blowing in from the north so it’s bringing cold temps along with it. There’s no question as to wether or not it’s gonna snow. The real question is… how much?
Over the last 4 months I’ve been watching the snow forecasting sites closely. And it’s come to my attention that there are 2 sites the resorts seem to use to do most of their forecasting with. And which ever one reports the highest amount of snow is the one they use. NOAA seems to grosely over predict snow totals, and then change the report when it doesn’t measure up. On the other hand, snow-forecast seems to be pretty right on from what I have seen. So I decided to do an official test that we can track, and this storm seems to be a good one to monitor for the test.
Right now at 5:26pm on Monday evening NOAA is predicting 2-4 inches tonight, 2-4 inches Tuesday, 10-16 inches Tuesday night, and 3-5 inches on Wednesday for the Mt. Hood Meadows location. That’s a total of 17 inches on the low end and 29 inches on the high end.
In comparison, at 5:27pm on Monday, Snow-forecast is reporting a total of no new snow tonight, 0.8 inches predicted for Tuesday, 3.5 inches for Tuesday night, and nothing for Wednesday. That’s a total of 4.3 inches.
Big difference right? How could these two sites both predict such different snow totals you ask? Well I ask myself this same question every time a storm blows in. It makes it really hard to know which day you should play hooky from work doesn’t it.
Now I know that predicting storms and snow totals is not a science, and it is nothing more then a “prediction”. But I have to ask myself how 2 sites that seem to base their information from the same resources can predict such different totals. Well I’m going to keep my eye on this storm as it blows in, and keep tabs on who is the closest at these preliminary predictions. Stay tuned for updates…
8 Responses to “keeping them honest”
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clint
08. Mar, 2010
Glad you’re doing this…I’m inclined, like you, to believe snow-forecast. When you keep in mind that NOAA is a part of the US Department of Commerce and that their primary mission is to protect commerce of the nation it makes sense that they would overshoot on snow in the mountains. Better to overpredict and be wrong than to underpredict and have the highways tied up because ODOT wasn’t prepared.
Landon
09. Mar, 2010
UPDATE – Well it did snow 3 inches yesterday, so I would say that NOAA was correct for the forecast on Monday. And they have down graded their report for Tuesday night to 6-10 inches. That’s a half of a foot downgrade.
Snow-forecast has held steady still reporting 4.3 inches for today. Check back tonight to see who gets the closest to their predictions.
Karim Hadid
09. Mar, 2010
Such a rad article. I’ve been checking both sites and also wonder how they can be that far off. I too follow the weather very closely and agree with your comparison. My only disagreement is with the part where you mention that predicting snowfall is not a science. Meteorology is very much a science, but far from an exact science that’s for sure; especially in the NW. Great website btw!
Landon
09. Mar, 2010
Thanks guys for your responses – this is something that I have always thought was very weird here in the Northwest. It just seems bizarre to me that NOAA can be so off reporting snow totals storm after storm.
Clint – very interesting that NOAA is part of the US Department of Commerce. I had no idea. Could that then mean that they possibly over-forecast hoping to drive traffic to folks going to the mountains for recreational activities?
Karim – You are right about Meteorology being a science. I guess with the fluctuation of the reporting being all over the place, there just doesn’t seem to be a scientific way of accurately forecasting snow totals. And if there is, NOAA is not using it.
But then again, they were correct about the 3 inches yesterday. So go figure.
clint
09. Mar, 2010
I think part of the issue of course is that snow accumulation depends so much on wind direction and speed. The snow levels look very different on different parts of Meadows depending on the type of storm and that part is extremely hard to predict I’d imagine.
With regards to NOAA, I think their priority is probably the big stuff: keeping the roads, rails, ports and airports open (or at least prepared for issues). Remember when we had that unexpected snow fall in town a couple month ago and it made a huge mess. There was a lot of criticism of the weather services for getting it wrong. if that happened on Highways 35 and 26, because they didn’t have the plows ready, the added costs for shipping delays, etc. would be huge and someone would get in a bunch of trouble…but if it drives a few more people to the mountain to spend money, its a bonus.
Landon
09. Mar, 2010
UPDATE – At 11:35pm Tuesday Night – Meadows is reporting 4 inches in the last 24 hours. So it snowed 4 inches on Tuesday, which would mean at this exact moment, Snow-forecast is only .3 inches off from what they predicted on Monday. And NOAA is a whopping 25 inches off from the max they reported on Monday. NOAA is now predicting 8-12 inches possible for tonight, while snow-forecast adjusted their prediction to 5.1 for the Tuesday totals.
Stay tuned folks… more monitoring to follow tomorrow. But so far it seems that Snow-forecast is looking to have predicted this storm spot on. But who knows, maybe we will wake up and there will be a foot of fresh on the ground. And don’t get me wrong – I want that more then anyone. And if that comes, I’ll be the first one to call in sick. Talk to you in the morning.
Landon
10. Mar, 2010
UPDATE – On Wednesday morning at 10am, the official snow totals from this storm are 7 inches. Let’s look back at the forecasts… hmmmm. Snowforecast was 2.5 inches under, and NOAA was 22 inches over. I didn’t see that coming did I.
So keep your eyes on the storms folks. And make your own calls as to whether or not it’s going to dump. Because your guess is as good as any when it comes to forecasting predicted snow totals.
john
10. Mar, 2010
something else i like on snow-forecast is that they’ve been way accurate about freezing elevations. so if noaa is predicting 8-12, look at snow-forecasts freezing level before you get your hopes up.