52 replies to this topic

[wxtracker93]

Craig Allen typed this up and didn't have time to log on, so he asked me to post it.
===============

Do you want to know why the public distrusts us so much and why we all get lumped into one group despite the fact many have more knowledge or experience of the science than others?

I just posted this on facebook in reply to a friend's post stating tongue in cheek, "he better run to the supermarket now; he heard an Armageddon snowstorm is on the way"
He was referring to my competition already stating and I quote "Snow WILL accumulate 3-6" and 6-12" north & west of I-287".
This was as early as 5AM Sunday morning for a storm that will not hit until Monday night or Tuesday. It has had a track change of over 300 miles in the last 48 hours, from an inland runner bringing us warm & wet weather to so far offshore that we might get nothing and now backed in again. Computer map estimates range from nothing to 16 inches. How the eff can anyone put out accumulations with certainty at this point? And then I have to follow up on this on Monday morning if it's changed again???? Explain someone else's mistakes? No way. This bull**** is going to stop.

The producer on duty at my station, WCBS880 agreed this was absurd, and has pulled the tapes to be re recorded. I'm seriously going to follow up with higher authorities, like my news director, representatives of the competing weather service and possibly a letter to the AMS (but with the amount of donations given by this service versus mine, I'm sure my letter will be tossed in the garbage).

Feel free to pass this along to your colleagues and maybe we can put an end to this cowboy meteorology- to this notion that we're weather-gods and know the answers. I'm trying to help this profession by saying we are not. Because if this and any other forecast becomes a big bust, it's because of the cowboys who fire the first shot without any real knowledge, other than the desire to be first.
My personal feeling is this competing weather service is trying to show up the 'other' large weather 'channel' service. But don't dare get me- with 27 years of building confidence in my listeners on my station caught in the middle of your war.....And then we all go down with the ship.

I'm admitting, I don't have the answer to this storm- no clue yet which way it will go - and I will proudly say that at this point. Irresponsibility in this profession is what's killing it; not the lack of knowledge. To all the good people and colleagues I know at this company, I apologize for my rant; I'm sure you were uncomfortable issuing this hype.


"I just told my 880 producers to cease and desist running forecasts with accumulations numbers in it. This storm is nearly 2 days away; has had 10 different tracks and will have 20 more before we know for sure. It has gone from a windy, warm rainstorm to offshore with nothing. And now they feel they know the answer and can say 3-6 or 6-12 inches will fall? Cowboy meteorology is what I call it. They want to commit meteorological suicide on their primary station, be my guest but I will not be the one to follow up to this nonsense Monday morning until I KNOW what's really going to happen. There is nothing wrong with saying "this storm could bring significant accumulations" or even say "this has the potential to be big"....but actual numbers? Now?
This stuff has got to stop. I'm sure my complaints to the AMS will fall on deaf ears though."

[icehater]

It's not an easy job. You need to deal with the NWS whem they make a major screw-up, ala the absurd WSW of last year, that Craig and other local Merts got stuck with and then you get lumped with the nuts like Henry and the insecure Met crowd like JB, LC and many others that are seeking adoration for a call that they make well before any data even remotely supports it. Most Mets are very secure conservative people and I hope Craig takes it as a compliment that its how I view him. His snow forecasts are always conservative at first for the very logical reason that he's much more interested in alerting the public to disruption the weather will cause them than making a guess and hoping he's adored for accuracy by a bunch of weenies if that guess is right. Whether you get 8-12" of snow or 10-16" of snow you are in for a tough day if you are a commuter or have to make a decision on business. So a good forecaster goes with the lower more logical amount and leaves the door open for higher amounts possible. As for why insecure Mets look to please rather than be responsible - well just look at all the criticisms around here in December when posters on this board wanted a WSW frpm the NWS (and then criticized them absurdly) for a storm that was destined to change to rain, 48 hours before the event. Give the weenies what they want and you become their hero.

[robbbs]

Craig -- I appreciate your candor and honesty on this. It's one thing for some of us on a weather chat board to get excited over an inidvidual model run, but even the hobbyists here know that modeling constantly shows different solutions, and it's for discussion purposes only and not a forecast. As you stated, the same cannot be said for some of your competitors. Boggles the mind how some of the most irresponsible and blatantly wrong mets have followings and continue to stay in business and thrive but give a very bad name and reputation to the industry and other mets.

[summer]

That is why huge compliments should go out to the regular posters on this board who always and I stress always preach caution with all of these big events - I have not posted for many months because of what I feel are comments made personally to me that do not reflect my intentions. There are about three posters I can think of that are always riding my back and quite frankly I got tired of them. However, I continue to read all the posts on this site and have to issue a compliment to the regular posters that are knowledgable about the weather and the balance they bring to the site - keep up the good work and I am bummed out too about tomorrow looking like a very small, if any, event!

[rgwp96]

well craig certainly mentioned it as a monster of a storm and heavy snow from the poconos westward. (dont remember the day but I think it was thursday night) Said somebody is going to get clobbered, isnt that jumping the gun two?

[caribbeanpirate5]

rgwp96, on Feb 2 2009, 08:34 AM, said:

well craig certainly mentioned it as a monster of a storm and heavy snow from the poconos westward. (dont remember the day but I think it was thursday night) Said somebody is going to get clobbered, isnt that jumping the gun two?

You are exactly right. The weather report on newscasts draws viewers and hyping a snowstorm brings in viewers. More viewers = higher ad rates which = greater revenues for the station. This is a business and bad weather, forecasted correctly or incorrectly, brings in the $$. Nothing will change as long as the equation remains the same.

[bm55]

rgwp96, on Feb 2 2009, 08:34 AM, said:

well craig certainly mentioned it as a monster of a storm and heavy snow from the poconos westward. (dont remember the day but I think it was thursday night) Said somebody is going to get clobbered, isnt that jumping the gun two?

yes he did jump the gun,which he doesn't usually do, but in all fairness, he went with the model runs at that time.

[satellite_eyes]

But the poconos and west wouldn't be in his listening or viewing area correct?

[rgwp96]

satellite_eyes, on Feb 2 2009, 08:49 AM, said:

But the poconos and west wouldn't be in his listening or viewing area correct?

dont know, Ill ask my brother that lives there, they probably do considering they get all giant home games on tv as a local game

[jimjesswill3]

Yes!!! We are in his listening area. We get all NY broadcasts except channel 7

[rgwp96]

satellite_eyes, on Feb 2 2009, 08:49 AM, said:

But the poconos and west wouldn't be in his listening or viewing area correct?

sat im not trying to knock him but just to point out that he did sort of the same thing. hes better than most other out there for sure

[rgwp96]

jimjesswill3, on Feb 2 2009, 09:24 AM, said:

Yes!!! We are in his listening area. We get all NY broadcasts except channel 7

thanks

[satellite_eyes]

Not sure if he said that on tv or radio. I would imagine they don't get 880 AM in the poconos. Well i assume we'll hear from him at some point. His point was giving out accumulations which he didn't do though.

[rgwp96]

satellite_eyes, on Feb 2 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

Not sure if he said that on tv or radio. I would imagine they don't get 880 AM in the poconos. Well i assume we'll hear from him at some point. His point was giving out accumulations which he didn't do though.

tv, I saw it and even said to my wife I couldnt believe he would say that this early in the game

[GameOfLove]

880 like 660 travels fairly far, especially at night. I heard both stations crystal clear at night many times in Columbus, OH. Durning the daytime they probably make into Reading - Hazleton.

I think it was CBS2 during the 6 o' clock weather broadcast on Thursday or Friday where the Met on duty said we are very confidence this will be a huge rainmaker in our area. Usually we don't says things like that, but all the models agree on it - something like that he said. Forget who was on duty that night..

[icehater]

rgwp96, on Feb 2 2009, 09:29 AM, said:

sat im not trying to knock him but just to point out that he did sort of the same thing. hes better than most other out there for sure

I think Craig and just about every Met was certain that was a big OV or western Pa blizzard. Every model showed it for days with tremendous consistency and storms modelled like that so far in advance have a history of behaving exactly as is. There are plenty of examples, most notably 1993 and both historic blizzards of 1978. These were super intense storms that showed up on weather models 4-5 days beforehand and if anything ended up being more powerful than modelled. There was another one earlier in the 70's that buried Chicago with 23" of snow that also was modelled 5 days ahead of time. So when you see that type of signature you are almost sure something very big is practically a guarantee. I also had no doubts on that one and this storm is instead turning out to give everyone from eastern Ohio thru the coast nothing but big false alarms.

I wouldn't lump that comment of Craigs in with some of the looney predictions of Henry, who needs just one GFS model run with no corroboration elsewhere, to go off on a tangent or JB who is now calling for a historic, almost biblical cut-off storm later this month. These guys do it with almost every storm, purely for notoriety with no conscience of error or past huge mistakes. Craig did it this once and probably won't make the mistake again, and if he preferenced it with models are sggesting than it wasn't even a call.

[devilsfan0405]

I said it a few days ago; it's grossly irresponsible for anyone to make definitive calls days in advance on these complicated storm systems. There was an article on the Record's website on Thursday saying that TWO FEET was possible. How utterly absurd.

[jfar57]

I really wish that forecasts would include a confidence level with them. There should be some reasonable way to couch the likelihood of an event based upon model variance and "time from impact." If I have learned nothing from this board, its that the only thing guaranteed about the various models is they are inconsistent (many times wildly) from run to run.

Even this storm, while called on Fox last Thursday night as a blizzard was noted on this board as almost a lock. We all know now that the science of forecasting snow in our region is no where close to being able to forecast 5 days out with any reasonable accuracy. Heck, these models can't even consistently nail it 24-48 hours in advance.

It would be much more credible to see a forecast that admits that 5 days out is only 10% likely to happen, 3 days out is 40% likely, 24 hours is 80% ... or whatever the real numbers should be. Kind of like the concept of the track forecasts for hurricanes.

[Messiah94]

GameOfLove, on Feb 2 2009, 09:49 AM, said:

880 like 660 travels fairly far, especially at night. I heard both stations crystal clear at night many times in Columbus, OH. Durning the daytime they probably make into Reading - Hazleton.

I think it was CBS2 during the 6 o' clock weather broadcast on Thursday or Friday where the Met on duty said we are very confidence this will be a huge rainmaker in our area. Usually we don't says things like that, but all the models agree on it - something like that he said. Forget who was on duty that night..

So true! I was living in Cleveland from 94-96. Both those stations came in crystal clear but usually only at night. Funny thing too was you would lose most of it when going from NY to Ohio at about the NJ,PA boarder. Then you can pick it back up when you hit Ohio on RT 80.

[devilsfan0405]

jfar57, on Feb 2 2009, 11:02 AM, said:

I really wish that forecasts would include a confidence level with them. There should be some reasonable way to couch the likelihood of an event based upon model variance and "time from impact." If I have learned nothing from this board, its that the only thing guaranteed about the various models is they are inconsistent (many times wildly) from run to run.

Even this storm, while called on Fox last Thursday night as a blizzard was noted on this board as almost a lock. We all know now that the science of forecasting snow in our region is no where close to being able to forecast 5 days out with any reasonable accuracy. Heck, these models can't even consistently nail it 24-48 hours in advance.

It would be much more credible to see a forecast that admits that 5 days out is only 10% likely to happen, 3 days out is 40% likely, 24 hours is 80% ... or whatever the real numbers should be. Kind of like the concept of the track forecasts for hurricanes.

Or make it clear to viewers that these forecasts are based on computer models that are subject to change. Do not take this as gospel.