Weather It Is (A Look Back/Forward)

Good Evening:

Yesterday the wife says: "you always make it rain when the kids go to school and when they come home."  Today she says:  "why's the heat on?  Where's the rain, where's the snow?"

Being in favor of peaceful relations between the fair and not so fair sex, I didn't mention that I did exactly what she asked: it rained during the school hours and it didn't rain very much.

There's the rub.  Complaints are filing in from all corners.  "I hope you won't mind a bit of criticism, but I was prepared for a downpour," was just one example.

Yet, such criticism would be misplaced.  Every day (four times a day) during the rainy season we run a 5 member, high resolution ensemble.  Ideally, we would run a few more forecasts to "round-out" our ensemble, but this is what we can do on our current computer system.  (Even so, it's a lot better than what's available elsewhere).

In any case, yesterday was a very convective situation and the various members of the ensemble had a disagreement.  A large majority said that it would great more than 10 mm, while a majority said that it would rain more than 25 mm in 3 hours, both along the coast and in the Jerusalem area. Given the relative high probability of heavy rain, it was necessary to take precautionary actions.  However, there was at least one or two forecasts that said: "it's going to rain, but not that much."  Sometimes the minority is correct, and yesterday was one of those days.

Our goal is to be right more often than wrong when then majority says rain (lots of it), and so far we're doing better than even.  While this might not matter much to you (the layman/women), it is the best approach for weather forecasting and the most accurate over the long term.

Regarding our upcoming weather: it will stay cool for the next few days and then warm up quite nicely.

You probably noticed how green the landscape is.  We had some early season rain this year and combined with the occasional  warm day, we've managed to make things look more like spring then fall/winter.  In fact, next week's warmth will only encourage some late season plant growth.

However, all is not as it will appear. The end of the month will bring much colder weather.

While it's not clear whether this will be a rainy start to more winter like weather or not, there is a 10% chance that the first of the month will bring some wet snow to the higher elevations.  (This mean that it probably, probably won't, but it might).

Barry Lynn