As far as I’m concerned, the technology forecasting weather said a snow storm of significant impact would arrive early this week, and it arrived as scheduled. Forecasting exact snow depth is nothing more than parlor shots at this point.
***Official 2021 Weather Thread***
- Thread starter ClonesTwenty1
- Start date
Forecasting/forecasters... basically the same thing. You probably meant the computer weather models, which is understandable and different than making an actual forecast. Weather models give a pretty good idea these days about what is going to happen. Forecasters interpret the models using climatology and statistical analysis of past model performance and many other things to make an actual forecast.
However, the problem is that weather is an extremely complex and dynamic system and relatively small changes can have drastic effects on the outcome at any given location.
Snow forecasting is even more complex, because it is nearly impossible to tell EXACTLY where heavy bands are going to set up or not set up. Most of that can only be determined by nowcasting, or evaluating what is happening once the storm has already began. Think of it this way, let's say there's 100% chance of rain today, and forecast is for 0.25"-0.75" of rain. Not a huge difference in rain, right? Well, for snow, that could be 2"-18", or what is perceived as a helluva big difference with much larger impacts. Temperature and humidity (at all layers of the atmosphere), and even the differences in the size and type of snowflakes that form play a huge factor in snowfall rates and is difficult to predict. I'm far from a pro and I haven't even touched on all of the ways a snowfall forecast can bust, but honestly it's amazing that it's as good as it is, IMO.
I don’t think you offended anyone. The statement you made is just incorrect, that’s all.
Totals in SW Iowa are at/over a foot.
Unfortunately, there's an outage with NWS so they aren't able to issue their storm reports officially right now so the IEM can scrape them for this map.
I'll try to post them as we hear them.
Unfortunately, there's an outage with NWS so they aren't able to issue their storm reports officially right now so the IEM can scrape them for this map.
I'll try to post them as we hear them.
The weather channel is showing that that dry slot is going to close up. I'm not convinced it will stick around.
Yeah. The truth is it was a poor attempt at sarcasm based off the whole Earl thing. Failed miserably lol.
@ClonesTwenty1 That's a boo boo by Ed. Wrong graphic tweeted. Last storm's number.
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Theres no way Des Moines only has 4.9” like I saw posted earlier. I’m around ingersoll and mlk in an area shielded from wind and closer to 7, if not a bit more than that.
@CychiatricWard That's the Aiport measurement just before 6 PM. I wouldn't be surprised if you have more.
Judging from the radar, I think the airport will be a bit on the lower side compared to the rest of Des Moines.
My wife said there was 3.5 in the driveway at my house at a quarter to 5...live right across the street from the air guard.
We have almost 8 right now. So a couple more hours of this I think the 10 inch mark will be fairly easy to reach. Might even reach Shenandoah levels. Hope not.
They forecasted it would snow in this time period over a week ago. That's pretty damn impressive IMO.
Seems like they forecasted a **** ton of snow for Hwy 30 south to the confederate border. Judging by the totals it would appear there is a **** ton of snow happening in that exact area.
