Archie F. Swin |
01-15-2017 10:57 AM |
I have no choice to be an apologist for the entire weather enterprise (private/public) since I am a part of it. This was rightfully predicted to be a very serious situation, especially for Oklahoma and Kansas by historically reliable models (within 70 hours).
I'm not part of the Kansas city media and I don't watch the Weather Channel. My daily forecast area is the Red River Valley of north Texas. So, I don't know to what degree the storm potential was hyped by media and the folks at Pleasant Hill.
HERE'S THE MAIN PROBLEM in this age of social media: Both news & weather outlets (plus those who have no business talking about the weather) began warning people about how bad the storm could be (and had every right to do so based on the forecast data AT THAT TIME). The problem is, when new info comes in and forecast adjustments are made in the 48-24 hours leading up to the event...consumers of social media have been prepared (if not conditioned) for a "Storm of the Century (of the week)" and that's what they're expecting, even though they heard this on Wednesday and now its the Saturday before the storm. It seems that people refuse to adjust their expectations once the hype has gone full bore, even though that was 4 days before the event.
I think the issue here is that the two ingredients of an high impact ice storm simply didn't sync up. Basically temps warmed up before (or as) the significant rain moved in. I was confident that would be the case here, 6 hours south of Arrowhead, but was concerned of something far more dire in Kansas.
The Euro model (coming from the UK) is a strong performer. Regional meteorologists had every right to be concerned about a thin layer of sub-freezing air lingering as rain chances ramped up into the weekend.
What you'll find, once the storm passes, is that KS/MO was probably 4-7 degrees from a crippling Ice storm.
|