Weather Maps

Amazing how the old adage, ...the only thing the weathermen can predict is their paycheck every week... still holds true. The recent winter storm advisory from THU night til early FRI morning had us heading for 8-10 inches of snow. We woke up FRI morning to 2, maybe 3 inches. By SAT afternoon it had mostly all melted as it hit 39*F. . As my wife always says, that's why only MEN draw maps with the Legend listed as: 1 INCH = 10 Miles...

Tim Daley(MI)

Just depends on which model you were looking at. The map on Ag Day was spot on. It showed that storm barely skimming us if it even hit us at all and that's exactly what happened. We got about an inch, just like that particular forecast predicted. From what I can see, they did really get hammered to the south and east of us, again, just like that model showed it would.

I was looking at my local TV stations, only time I tune in to them. Now last week we had about 6, exactly what they predicted and two times prior this year the same as well. We've actually been lukey the past few years. We used to get nailed every winter with snow by Thanksgiving lasting til Ash Wednesday and Easter. The beauty is it all melts within a few days. I'm retired now so don't have to drive 55-75 miles to work in that stuff now. Don't miss any of it. Not so much the snow as it is the dang ice and cold. Funny too how stupid people can get. I went to get a few groceries on FRI afternoon before the snow even started and the shelves were practically empty. Recall when the nnalert fiasco started? The first thing people did was horde the TP. Why? It is a respiratory thing, not an intestinal thing.

TPD

I was looking at my local TV stations, only time I tune in to them. Now last week we had about 6, exactly what they predicted and two times prior this year the same as well. We've actually been lukey the past few years. We used to get nailed every winter with snow by Thanksgiving lasting til Ash Wednesday and Easter. The beauty is it all melts within a few days. I'm retired now so don't have to drive 55-75 miles to work in that stuff now. Don't miss any of it. Not so much the snow as it is the dang ice and cold. Funny too how stupid people can get. I went to get a few groceries on FRI afternoon before the snow even started and the shelves were practically empty. Recall when the cvd fiasco started? The first thing people did was horde the TP. Why? It is a respiratory thing, not an intestinal thing.

TPD

My part of Mi. they predicted around nine to ten inches Fri day night. According to my tape measure and the walk to the barn Sat. morning I came up with 9.5 inches. You must have been right on the edge of the storm. I know I was glad I put the snow blower on my loader tractor Friday. Although it seems I never need the blower when I hook it up ahead of time.

I think the local forecasters tend to overpredict the severity of pending weather. I suspect they all want to be the one who Told You First. If they get it right, then they make promo spots bragging that they knew before anyone else and you should rely on them as your only source of information. I look at the NWS bulletins and go from there. Dave

Sometimes I think weather forecasters predict the worst case scenario and just forecast that. Especially on the extremes of not only snow accumulations, but the heat, cold, flooding, wind speeds, and so on.

Why do they do this?? The only reason I can think of, is the liability of the network they are working for. Nobody gets caught in a blizzard when there wasn't even one in the forecast. That is, if they forecast a blizzard, even if there is only a possibility of one. You catching my drift?? LOL.

I don't really blame them in this lawsuit happy society we are living in. Where it's always the fault of others. And court rulings sometimes favoring the most craziest stuff ever brought to court.

You have any doubt that people wouldn't sue the news network over an in-accurate weather forcast if somebody froze to death, drowned, or died of heat exhaustion?? If severe weather was not even forecasted by the network? So it's just better for them to forcaste the worst case scenario, and broaden the areas of that predicted forecast. Cover thier tail so to speak. Even if it's wrong. Better to be wrong the one way, than the other way.

You're almost right about them over predicting. They get several possible models. They use the one that predicts the most gloom and doom to keep you glued to the radio or TV, namely, their station, for ratings. A long time weather guy on a Grand Rapids station retired and then went on a local radio show one morning and was telling all about it. Scare everybody as often as you can to keep them tuned in for updates. There can be a prediction of perfect weather for the next five days, but if it's going to turn bad on the sixth day, that's what they lead with and dwell on. They call themselves things like ''Storm Team 8'' and the weather portion of the news starts with ominous music and pictures of dark clouds and lightning flashing.

If you want an accurate forecast you have to go to a more independent source.

''Recall when the cvd fiasco started? The first thing people did was horde the TP. Why? It is a respiratory thing, not an intestinal thing.''

It's your post, you can do whatever you want to do, but if I was you, I'd use the edit feature to delete that part. If you don't, I've got a hunch it'll cause your whole post to be taken down by the fire storm that it'll start. I'll edit it out from this reply so there's no record if you choose to delete your part.

I don't care one way or another, not my post, but I'd stick to one subject at a time if I wanted it to stay up.

The weather people among others got a certain amount of blame for Quote insufficient reporting unquote for the Buffalo, NY blizzard several weeks back. So you are darned if you do give the worst case scenario and it turns out to be accurate. Unfortunately, there always are going to be people that will not take heed of any warnings. Then depending on your job it is not possible to stay home for the worst of it. My sister works in a critical area of the regional hospital in Rochester, NY and has had many tough drives to work over the years.

The comical part was, a week ago Friday night, they said there was a ''small disturbance'' that would drop a little snow. We woke up to snow covered roads and plowable snow last Saturday. This Friday, they'd been warning all week of a major storm and we had an inch. Like I said, we barely caught the edge of this one, just like some models showed, but the stations south of us where our news and weather reports come from included us in their predictions.

Lots of things come into play when you talk about weather persons on TV.

First is predicting the future is a hard thing to do.
We have become better at it in our life time with advanced computers but we still have a long way to go.

Second is it is better to predict a worse case scenario.
Would you rather them predict a white out with 15 inches of snow and you stay home from work that day and only get 2 inches.
Or would you rather them predict 2 inches and you get stuck at work because you got 15 inches.

Third is TV stations are not willing to pay for real weather persons with a science degree in weather forecasting.
They hire broadcast meteorologist that are trained in reading detailed forecast provided by real weather forecasters such as the national weather service and use there broadcasting skills to explain the next days weather on TV to the public. While some become better over time none are trained to predict the weather.

And like I tell the guys that complain that their package came a day late.
We are hiring.
I am sure if you can do a better job and predict the weather correct 100 percent of the time the TV station will put you right to work.

Its called sensationalism. They do it predicting weather now the same as they do with the news. I think they are trying to attract more viewers. For me I just turn them off.

Do not listen to TV weather, internet weather, cell phone weather or anything else other than the National Weather Service, - NOAA. Despite what all other broadcasters say, - they all get the facts from the government agency. NOAA's website is loaded with information about why they're making their prediction. I'm a defender of NOAA. We get much better overall predictions from the NWS than we did 50 years ago.

I stopped watching TV8 when that goofy Ellen Bacca started leading the weather forecast. It is hard to take her seriously when she giggles through her forecast. My friends and i call them Scare Team 8 I get my weather forecast at Weather.gov which is NOAA

And they can out west do a much better job of predicting weather than they can back east here. OF course out there life depends on it in some areas. As posed to back east where there is a place to hole up about every 10 miles. I would hate to get caught out on HWY 10 from Lajunta CO to Walsenburg 70 miles of nothing but open country even a jack rabbit packs a lunch and a canteen to cross that country. He takes a blanket too.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in what redforlife said--a lot of CYA going on there. Too bad this has become such a litigious society.

The guy on the Mankato, MN station does a really good job! He's fairly accurate most of the time, and on the long range forecasts, he always gives the caveat that, "this is still quite a ways out yet, and things could change". But he's still amazingly accurate, and very professional to boot--a welcome change from the jacka$$ they used to have!