Forecasts miss non-storm in northern Red River Valley
February 29, 2012 at 2:23 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The winter storm, maybe even a blizzard, forecast for much of the Red River Valley including up to 8 inches of snow predicted for Grand Forks never made it that far north.
National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Hopkins said several factors spared Grand Forks from the winter storm that dropped rain, ice and as much as 18 inches of snow in central Minnesota and southeast North Dakota. Continue Reading
Not at all shocked. The national weather service in its zeal to put out warnings has become the boy who cried wolf. It has gotten so bad that until I see it out the window I do not believe the warnings.
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Zeal? Are we to think that the NWS purposely exaggerates their forecasts to create a stir? As I have stated in another post on facebook…the NWS saw this storm coming and called the storm track as they saw it with the best tools at their disposal. Looking out the window and determining what the weather will be is always an option. But if you ask me, kinda shortsighted. I can look out and see blue skies here in GF and head west and run into blizzard conditions by the time I reach Minot. Do I blame the NWS?
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Yeah, right. Who else gets paid big bucks to be totally wrong most of the time?
YES, they ABSOLUTELY sensationalize the weather in order to create a stir. They exaggerate the danger, they exaggerate the intensity. I guess they can’t be blamed when some bonehead drives off the road that way.
I’m sick of it, and I have been for twenty years. I avoid weather reports if possible.
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The NWS is not wrong that often.
Forecasting will never have 100% accuracy. It’s just not possible! Those people at the NWS work their posteriors off to keep people like you safe. Before you complain about how wrong they are, go spend a day in their shoes! You’d never make it!
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Personally I’d much rather have the service than not. We tend to forget that they have a prety good record at times when there’s a miss. These things happen. I’m more concerned at how the media hypes these things….Or maybe there’s not a good enough communication between the two so the media jumps the gun. I wonder how many of those radio critics are upset because they look foolish ringing the warning bell so far in advance?
My mother told me of a March storm in the 1940′s where the day started out like a nice sunny spring morning, but then a winter storm swooped in so fast and hard that people literally couldn’t see very many feet in front of them and died making it from a barn to the house and even got stranded in town because it was too heavy to even walk a block or two. We’re not likely ever going to be caught off guard like that these days, but the media hypes these storms so far in advance that people prepare as if it will. A day or two out it would seem more appropiate to use “May” or “Could” instead of “THERE A STORM LOOKING TO KILL YOU” Ok…Maybe that’s a stretch, but not by much. As the storm gets closer the accuracy in the forecast must increase tremendously….With all the media out there I think the message sent out a day before is adaquate for snow storms…..Tornadoes are a different matter because that’s a very quick killer, but blizzards generally don’t just gather on top of you..
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