When do meteorologists really know how much snow we will get?
When it comes to forecasting major weather events, every hour counts.
After an unseasonably warm December, Boston is finally getting a taste of winter. On Sunday night, a few inches of snow hit the area, and more snow could be coming this weekend. On top of that, the week of January 18-25 is traditionally the coldest week of the year, and Mother Nature hasn’t disappointed so far, keeping temperatures below freezing most of the week.
To help Bostonians with all of their winter weather needs, we asked meteorologist and Boston.com contributor Dave Epstein to give us advice on everything you need to know to prepare for both the snow and the cold.
Question: In general, what is the sweet spot for really knowing what a storm is going to bring us?
Answer: “I think between 84 and 72 hours is kind of the magic number where confidence grows exponentially. Outside of 84 hours, we talk more about “possibility’’ and “awareness,’’ but inside that time frame we start talking about amounts, and the odds of meteorologists being right grow quite a bit. … [I]t’s the computer models. A storm can be moving slowly enough that it’s over the West Coast five days before it reaches us, but the short-range models we use only go out 84 hours. Some models go out 15 days, but these are 84 hours.’’
For more up-to-date weather news, check out Dave’s Weather Wisdom blog or follow him on Twitter @growingwisdom.
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