Forecasting Kitsap

It’s Tuesday, so that means more tales of adventure regarding forecasting weather in the Kitsap area! As many know, snow in the Northwest is an incredibly complex and often frustrating weather pattern to predict around here. What is even more complex than predicting snow for any given day in the winter? Predicting snow for Christmas.

Historically, Seattle has a 7% chance of at least 1” of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. Bremerton has a slightly higher chance: 10%. With that given information, it should be easily understandable that predicting a white Christmas—even if it’s 5 days out—is a stressful thing.

I’ve mentioned before that I forecast the weather for the Central Kitsap High School broadcasts and I even send my forecasts to Ridgetop Junior High. After the floods occured on December 3rd, 2007, I began to study weather models religiously. Every 6 hours new data rolled in and I was there to greet it…every…step…of…the…way. Yes, it was exhausting, but I was (and still am!) passionate about forecasting weather, especially severe events like flooding, snow, cold, etc.

I began to notice a development in the weather models on Tuesday, December 11th that made my heart skip a little—a cold and snowy Christmas was in the forecast. Yeah, it was quite a ways out there in la la land, but the Friday broadcast was approaching…should I say something? Then, every 6 hours for two more days models advertised cold and snow for Christmas. This was incredible consistency! Finally, the morning of my weather forecast I checked the models one more time. Yup…still calling for snow.

I finally put a rain/snow mix on my long range forecast map for Christmas. But here’s where the public gets sorta funny. Even if there’s a rain/snow mix on the map, most people translate that as several inches of snow. Every time. If a weatherman predicts rain/snow and people get rain/snow, the weatherman is in trouble because it didn’t stick. Funny, but true.

When the word was leaked on Friday, December 14th, 2007 that snow could fall on Christmas, the whole school was in a buzz. I even had students threaten me—in a joking way of course—saying if it didn’t snow on Christmas, they’d be at my door with pitchforks. The rest of the following week was quite intense for me, especially when I checked the models on Monday, December 17th:

The forecast called for a sunny and warm Christmas day: highs in the 50s, even.

My heart sank. Oh great!! My family’s safety was in jeopardy! My safety was in jeopardy! I told myself to calm down as I waited another 6 hours for the models to come around…

Nope. Still warm and dry, though not as warm with highs forecasted to be in the upper 40s. I was still tense as I went through school hoping and praying the models would come around.

Finally, on Wednesday, December 19th the models advertised cold and snow again. This time, Christmas wasn’t in la la land—it was less than a week away!

When model consistency continued through Friday, I included snow in my forecast again: this time, plain snow. No rain. Uh-oh.

Now the stakes were high, and I was afraid I’d land on one of those stakes if the forecast didn’t end up as predicted. Remarkably, the snow forecast remained consistent, and it snowed 3” on Christmas Day. We exceeded the 1” requirement of a White Christmas by 2 full inches! Seattle even got a couple inches.

And, what is more remarkable, is I forecasted a white Christmas this year too. A week ahead of time! And, the models were even more consistent this year than in 2007. Two White Christmas’s in a row? We may have to boost up that 10% chance!

The moral of the story is: even though weather forecasting is a challenging and stressful job, it is very fun and thrilling. Especially when long range forecasts go as planned!!

Well, enjoy the day today. The fog is quite thick around the area, but don’t worry! We’ll clear out…

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 7:50 am by Matthew Leach and is filed under This Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.