Wednesday, December 05, 2007

And since we've no placed to go*...

Woo-hoo!

Snow!

In my quest to find subjects that I like and can actually write about, snow's probably on top of the list. Actually, not so much snow itself, but how well it was forecast.

That's right: Time for some Weatherman Accountability.

It's been a while since we've done this – obviously, since the last time it snowed – and last night I debated whether I should even bring it out of retirement for today, our fourth snowy December 5th since 2002. (How's that for consistency?)

Because I usually love accountability and weather, you might wonder why I was so lukewarm the idea of bringing WA back for today's "storm." The answer is those quotes. Before it started, I didn't think this predicted low-moisture Alberta Clipper really deserved a full analysis, especially because most meteorologists were in agreement about the outcome – namely, as of last night, 1" – 2" with little real impact. See a collection of predictions at Capital Weather.

But, then, it started snowing. And it kept snowing. And thanks to a burst of heavy snow after dark, we somehow managed to get 5" of snow on the Hayduke Weather Deck by 7 pm.

This surprised even me, a person who always expects snow storms to over-perform.

Unfortunately, it totally throws a (monkey) wrench (gang) in the post I had been mentally composing all day. I, the eternal snow optimist, expected the storm to exceed expectations, but only by an inch or so, just enough to joshingly reprimand the Weather Gillterati for their poor predictions.

As fun as that post would have been, the assessment of the pre-storm weather wisdom is easy: wrong.

Here's hoping they're wrong like this all winter.

*Snow. Christmas lights. I can't help the cheesiness.


Update: Channel 9 Meteorologist Tony Pann admits to being humbled by the storm, which he actually explains was two clippers. Good stuff, indeed...

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