Flooding and mudslides in Southern California, blowing snow with wind chills approaching 50 below in North Dakota and more than one million people without power in New England thanks to an ice storm.
Yea, it was a good week to be in South Florida.
I’m guessing that you liked our weather over the past six days, easily some of the nicest we’ve seen in months. Each day featured mostly sunny skies with afternoon high temperatures in the upper 70’s and mild overnight lows in the 60’s. It was just about perfect.
Except for Tuesday.
I knew something was amiss with our weather as soon as I woke up Tuesday morning. The night before I had predicted sunshine and warm temperatures (close to 80), yet as I peered out my bedroom window I was greeted with thick clouds and light rain.
(Insider information on meteorologists: the first thing every weather forecaster does when he/she wakes up each morning is look out the window. We are expecting a certain type of weather based on our most recent forecast and, if it is not what we anticipated, it is a lousy way to start the day.)
Back to last Tuesday: gray, wet and cool. This is not good, I said to myself as I quickly turned on the Weather Channel and scrambled for my laptop. What in the world is going on?
My mood darkened as I scanned satellite loops and radar sweeps of our area, each showing thick clouds and persistent showers across nearly all of South Florida. Surely, this damp weather can’t last? We should see sunshine and warmer temperatures by the afternoon. Right?
Wrong. The afternoon was just as gloomy as Tuesday morning leading to an inescapable conclusion: my prediction was dead wrong. A busted forecast, as we say in this business.
Everywhere I went Tuesday I was greeted with the same question: Wasn’t it supposed to by sunny and warm today? Yes, I would reply somewhat sheepishly, that’s what I expected.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this sordid story is that Tuesday’s forecast seemed like a slam-dunk. Everything I looked at Monday afternoon told me that Tuesday was going to be one of the best days of weather we’ve seen in months, the kind of late fall weather that made South Florida famous.
It reminded me of another seemingly “easy” forecast back in September. At the time, it seemed a certainty that it was going to rain cats and dogs across the region. The setup was classic: an abundance of tropical moisture in the Gulf of Mexico and an approaching trough of low pressure. The result: periods of heavy rain. It didn’t rain. In fact, it was sunny across most of the state.
Still, I am happy to report, Tuesday’s boo boo notwithstanding, that most of the time I get the weather correct. In fact, forecasting overall continues to improve especially for the big weather events like a tornado outbreak, a major winter storm or an approaching hurricane.
So, I’ll keep calling ‘em like I seem them. And each morning I’ll look out that bedroom window expecting the best. And if I’m wrong again? It’s back to the Weather Channel and my laptop.
