So with the 5.5" of the Valentine's Day Surprise on the front lawn, we are now a mere inch away from the snowiest winter (Dec-Feb) on record in Indianapolis, but still almost eight inches off the snowiest yearly total.
For all the fun talk about "Weather Guessers", weather forecasting is a lot different now than it was as recently as the '60s and '70s, before widespread availability of satellite and radar. The snow was no surprise, and neither was the amount; as far back as Wednesday they were calling for ~4" of snow in the central part of the state.
It's just that as late as Thursday, the fat part of the snowfall track was expected to pass about fifty miles farther south than it did, giving Indy an inch or two at best. From the comments at the linked article, it's obvious some of my fellow Circle City residents heard "1-2 inches" without stopping to hear the part about how is was supposed to be snowing 4-5 inches only a county or two away, and extrapolate some possible scenarios from that.
As far as the road clearing goes, it wouldn't shock me to find out that there had been some wishful thinking going on downtown as late as Friday morning, what with salt supplies dwindling and a call for 40° temps by Monday or Tuesday.
Much like a tornado watch: just because your county isn't actually in the watch area doesn't mean you don't need to pay attention.
ReplyDeleteSurprises of that type are Bad.
Environment Canada predicted 2-4 inches falling from Thursday evening to Friday evening. Montreal and the St Lawrence got 10".
ReplyDeleteI wish I had become a meteorologist, it must be nice to have a job where you can be wrong every day and not worry about being fired.
Al_in_Ottawa
Yep! (And for readers inclined to think my snow-related blog post is in opposition to Tams: I was makin' a joke and griping, not debating.)
ReplyDelete"I wish I had become a meteorologist, it must be nice to have a job where you can be wrong every day and not worry about being fired."
ReplyDeleteWho would take a job from which one could be fired for incorrectly guessing something that nobody completely understands?
Down here in Thunderville, the average for a season is a hair over 8", though the winter of '47-'48 brought us 25.2" of the stuff. (We've had 8.1" so far this winter.)
ReplyDeleteHmm. Another half ton of white stuff up north? Interesting. I thought about putting on a sweater this morning, but then it warmed up and I didn't need to bother. ;)
ReplyDeleteMaybe we could get Astrologists to predict the weather? It makes about as much sense as putting people who used to study meteors to predict weather in charge of this.
ReplyDeleteProbably wouldn't harm the prediction track record much.
And the weather reports would be much more amusing.
"Capricorns: We are getting 4" of snow tomorrow because you deserve it!"
Tam, please send some of your good weather forecasters down here in central Alabama. They can't tell if it's raining when they're standing out in it.
ReplyDeleteOnly one more inch?
ReplyDeleteC'mon! You can do it!!
O.M.G. 5.5 inches of Valintines day surprise?!? Just one more inch?!? So many inappropriate thoughts all at once! Gosh I need to grow up past fifth grade humor!!!
ReplyDeleteAn inch is a mile! I'm waiting for the Weather Liars said rain to commence again, phuleeze I have a rain barrel to fill!
ReplyDeleteThe Navier Stokes differential equations describe fluid flow with changes in temperature and density. They are non-linear, chaotic, with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. That means no finite set of prior states are sufficient to predict non-trivial future states. This has been known since 1963 and Edward Lorenz's paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow". No matter how big your set, if it is finite, there are spaces between your data points, and in those spaces, the Lorenz Butterfly can lurk.
ReplyDeleteAnd the butterfly's name is Murphy
ReplyDelete