MLK weekend, Valentines Day, and St. Patrick’s weekend....some of our biggest winter weather events have all been clustered around holidays this season. This storm did not make it into the record books, officially leaving about 13" of snow in Albany. If there was about 2" more snow, it would have been a top 10 snowstorm for March.
Columbia County had the highest amounts with many towns reporting 20-24". The Catskills had similar amounts as well. Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Washington Counties received 12-18", with most other places in the North Country and Mohawk Valley receiving between 8" and a foot.
The Albany snowfall total is up to about 42" for the season, which is still shy of the seasonal average of 63".
"What are these "models" that you weather guys talk about so much?" I received this question a few times past weekend ---- and no they are not a group of runway fashion models that come into the weather center in the morning and whisper the snowfall totals into my ear.
Basically the weather models are a visual representation of the weather that meteorologists use as a tool to forecast. Computers ingest real time weather data from all levels of the atmosphere and using some high level math equations output a weather forecast. Using the pictorial representation that these models provide, we can forecast temperatures, precipitation, wind speeds, etc.
There are many different versions of these weather models, but the two most popular are the GFS (Global Forecast System) and NAM (North American Model). Each model arrives at its solutions through a different series of calculations. (This will come into play later) The models are run every day at 6 hour intervals, giving us 4 sets of data to view.
Last week leading up to the storm the models were in disagreement as to the weather solution for Friday. The solutions were pretty much complete opposites, one showing dry weather, and the other showing snow for Friday. When this happens, I walk into the back of the studio where I have a dartboard set up, and begin throwing, bulls-eye = sunny. (Seriously, I'm kidding) The reason for the discrepancy is because these models all use the data they ingest in different ways to calculate a solution.
Conversely, the Valentines Day storm was portrayed well in the days leading up to it by the models because they were showing similar solutions all along. Also, in hindsight, they were right! This does not mean the models are always right, but if the other data sources agree, that would lead to a higher confidence in the model solution.
Now just because the models don't agree, does not mean you get a forecast that is not reliable. Remember I said they were 1 tool that we use. As meteorologists we know how to interpret these models and are trained to know why the models output what they do. By knowing this, we can pick which model we follow more closely, and disregard or put less weight in a solution we don't see happening. We can also look at multiple other sources of data to forecast, as well as rely on good old experience and knowledge about this area to provide a forecast that is just as accurate.
The weather models did not really come into agreement until Thursday night, which is why you heard us talking about the disagreement in the forecasts all week long. By the way, if you would like to see what the forecast models look like click here http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/. You'll find they are a much more scientific representation of the maps we show you on tv.
Remember the official start of Spring is 8:08pm Tuesday night. It won’t feel much like spring, but by the end of the week it will as temperatures rise into the 50’s!
Brandon
