Last night’s forecast was tough as nails! I was calling for a decent amount of snow in ilsnow land, knowing that it could bust right in my face.
I woke up at 5am to find nothing but a half-inch crust of ice on everything! Needless to say, I got a big pit in my stomach.
By 5:15am, it had changed to snow and the radar was showing several hours of heavy precipitation that would last into Tuesday morning. Crisis averted. đ
In the end, we got nearly a half-foot of snow on top of last night’s ice crust, a solid 5 inches for sure after a bit of settling:
Yes.. Ole Man Winter threw me a rope and bailed my forecast out at the last minute. But, when it was said and done, ilsnow land got pretty close to what I said would happen. I’ll certainly admit that we got more freezing rain and less sleet than what I was expecting.
Predictably, there’s a lot of social media noise about the busted forecasts all throughout New York State. And I can somewhat understand the frustration. This is a textbook reason as I don’t go into making forecast snow maps for region or state wide. Marginal cases like this kill a regional forecast every time! I have a tough enough time forecasting for my neck of the woods, even after nearly 25 years of doing this.
Rant alert!
Hey, it’s easy to sit in an armchair and pick apart a profession that you have absolutely no background or training for. It’s quite another to take the deep dive, learn the ropes and do better yourself. Predicting the future for anything is a risky business: weather…stock market…sports gambling…human behavior…whatever.
If you are absolutely PERFECT at your job with no mistakes or defects…ever, PLEASE SEND ME YOUR RESUME AND CREDENTIALS! I want you to work for me. Please!!
I’ve kicked butt forecasting and I’ve had my butt kicked countless times. Hey, if I could nail the forecast right every time, it probably wouldn’t be much fun. The risk of failure makes success all the sweeter. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. đ
5-DAY Outlook:
We’re back in business! But beware of falling or fallen snow/ice laden trees.
Temperatures will remain on the “mild” side of normal through Thursday, but not warm enough to screw things up for the central ‘Dacks. Lake effect snows and colder temperatures by the weekend should restore the mid winter veneer and give us pretty good snowmobiling weekend for ilsnow land. All in all, we survived this prolonged January Thaw well enough.
For the extended outlook, I’ll probably cut another Youtube video this week. Please subscribe to keep informed as to when I release.
A WORD ON LAKES: The lack of significant rain this week limited damage to the lake ice. But there is certainly slush on the lakes and as always…lake riding is entirely at your own risk.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Progressive Motorsports, celebrating their 24th year. They live, eat and breathe snowmobiling. Stop in today and see for yourself! Be sure to tell Karen that Darrin @ ilsnow.com sent ya.
