Ntxw wrote:The criticism of guidance support for the WWA was warranted today, and was likely not a good call by the FW NWS.
I do applaud them for using conventional wisdom and forecasting methods rather than just modelology however. Its tough to beat them models as time goes forward especially within 24-36 hours even compared to 10 years ago as they have greatly improved in the near term. It's the 5+ days that have problems. Shows that while we trash them (models) when they don't show us what we want, they are improving in short range forecasts.
I think maybe it was 3 years ago, but FWD went through a bad streak that winter. There was an event, they may have even issued a winter storm watch, that busted. Then later that same week we got unexpected snow during morning rush hour and FWD didn't issue anything even though the news was just wall-to-wall gridlock across the metroplex. Winter weather is tricky and I don't envy the forecasters that have to make these tough calls, esp. given the societal impacts they can have (school closings, canceled events, etc).
Winter time post are almost exclusively focused on the DFW area.