THIS WEEKENDS STORM, HYPE OR PREPARATION

Written by: Brian Neudorff:

As we expected this upcoming storm has generated one of our most commented topics so far here on this blog. This morning, there has been a nice back and forth discussion between myself those commenting on last night's post from Chief Meteorologist Scott Hetsko.

An Anonymous poster who wrote: "but the hype continues..." when they ended a comment inspired my blog topic for today. Is what we're doing hype or are we just doing our job?

I went and looked up the definition of "Hype" and I found two:
1. (Noun) - Promotion or advertisement; especially, exaggerated claims.
2. (Verb) "Hyping" - To promote heavily; to advertise or build up.

As I read those two definitions I could see how you could make the argument that we are "hyping" this storm since we are promoting it, and advertising it, but not sure if we qualify for "hype" since I don't think our claims are exaggerated.

As a meteorologist it is my job to predict the future when it comes to the weather. I have a responsibility to inform our viewers of what weather will and can have an impact on their day and even week. If it's going to rain I need to tell them so they can grab their umbrellas and take their rain coat. If it's going to snow, even just a little, then I need to tell them that and depending on how much I need to inform them that it might make travel troublesome.

That is how I approach this storm that is very likely by Thursday night into Saturday. I definitely feel that this storm is along the New England coast is a certainty, the only questions we have is exactly where does the surface center and the upper level centers stack up and how much of an impact will this have on our weather when it finally occurs.

In my opinion and talking with Scott this scenario is typically favorable for us getting a big snow out of a storm like this. Most of the comments this morning trended away from the idea of this being a storm for us and only a couple of inches. Part of that was due to a slight shift east in the center of the storm system by a couple of he models and also the NWS office in Buffalo mentioning that we might get 6-12" here in Western New York.

First off, as I have mentioned numerous time. All comments are welcomed. I love how this has brought a lot of you out to comment, snow lovers and snow haters a like. The one thing that wasn't mentioned from the the National Weather Service Discussion was what they said after mentioning 6-12 inches:

BUT DESPITE MODEL AGREEMENT...CLOSING OFF LOWS ARE NOTORIOUSLY TRICKY TO PIN DOWN EXACTLY WHERE THEY CLOSE OFF...AND ALTHOUGH CONFIDENCE IS HIGH THAT THERE WILL BE A STRONG LOW...DO NOT HAVE HIGH CONFIDENCE IN EXACTLY WHERE IT WILL DEVELOP AND/OR TRACK. THUS...WILL CONTINUE A MENTION IN THE HWO (Hazardous Weather Outlook) FOR THIS EVENT...BUT STILL WELL TOO FAR OFF FOR WATCH CONFIDENCE...THOUGH THE POTENTIAL FOR WARNING SNOWFALL DEFINITELY DOES EXI(s)T WITH THE FORECAST PATTERN.

I read this as the NWS just being cautious, and that they see the same thing and they know that a lot can still change between now and even 24 hours from now in the models.

What I find interesting is that when I looked at the last 2 runs of the NAM & GFS BUFKIT and using the overview setting to look at accumulated snow it was printing out 12 to as high as 17 inches of snow.

Finally I want to reiterate what Scott said yesterday in his post as many of you focus on the center of the surface storm from the most recent model runs,

"What really has me convinced at this point is not so much the surface but the 500mb low diving South from from Southern Canada. This upper low is really what will help ignite this storm and cause it to stall for a 24 hour period Friday morning through early Saturday."

For all saying that ALL the models have this storm to far east, I see it retrograding back west to start early Friday morning into Saturday morning as it stalls as Scott mentions above.

Like any forecast we have to wait and see, but to go back to my the original idea of this post whether it is "Hype" or "Preparation" I am going to stick by preparation as it this storm will take place during a weekend. There is a big Syracuse basketball game scheduled this weekend and many people will probably be traveling. If a storm looks like it will be a major inconvenient for people and potentially cause dangerous and hazardous travel then we have responsibility to let those who may be making plans to know what may impact them.