Weather It Is (The Winter of Our Disconent)

Good Morning:

My wife made a quick trip to the doctor's office yesterday morning.  The doctor felt obligated to tell her that because of the snow her day was really, really busy -- too busy.  One can imagine why she told my wife.

My wife said that she had a headache from the snow.  Then, she said ("tongue in check")  she had an allergy to to snow and since I like snow, she must be allergic to me.

I have to say that the past week was quite full of pressure. I felt especially bad telling people that it would snow on the night of their son's (or daughter's) wedding night, and even worse when it didn't snow as much as "advertised."

Moreover, many people had requests for the storm: more snow, less snow, rain to wash the snow away.  I couldn't keep up with it all.  With weather, the truism "that you can never please all of the people all of the time" is true.

Keeping in mind that our past forecasts of snow accumulation have been very accurate (and that our predictions for snow amounts in other locations for this storm were also so).... In regard to improving our forecasts, we have to be careful to distinguish between the general picture (which may portend doom), and the specific picture that may not be quite so bad. Fortunately, a post-storm investigation shows that on the day of the storm our highest resolution forecast was reasonably able to predict the subtleties of the snow accumulation patterns. Now that I am better appreciate this, I will be better able to use the forecast model to provide even more accurate snow predictions (or at least this is the plan).

This winter has been above normal on the wet side, and it certainly is off to a snow-good start. In fact, this Wednesday brings another chance of snow -- at least in the high elevations of Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, as well as the north.  When we get more details, we'll report them.  However, it may turn out to be just a window snow, as the temperatures may not be cool enough for sticking snow in most places other than the far north and Golan.

Looking almost two weeks out, we see a hint of an even bigger and stronger event. Now, wouldn't that be something.

Barry Lynn

Barry Lynn