In the wee hours of the morning, the National Weather Service’s main meteorologist in Mount Holly tweeted out “deepest apologies” in the wake of a “formidable storm” that, at least in New Jersey, fell a bit flat. The state climatologist says the storm hit 75 to 100 miles further east than forecast. Snowfall amounts were a fraction of what was predicted everywhere but eastern Long Island. But weather forecasting has always been as much art as science. Meteorologist John Cifelli told NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams why the predictions were off.
According to Cifelli, forecasting weather along the East Coast is more difficult than in other parts of the country like western Pennsylvania, the Midwest and the Deep South because storms are born on the East Coast. “They don’t have the specific challenge of not only trying to recognize how a storm is going to travel or how strong it’s gonna be. We also have to try to understand where it’s gonna be born,” he said.
Cifelli said as this winter storm developed, it shifted 75 miles east, causing much less snowfall than originally expected.
“Computer modeling is very complex and it’s not exact,” Cifelli said. “The truth is that we are not able to sample the atmosphere at all the different levels of it, from the surface all the way up to the very, very top across the entire globe. We have to estimate a lot of that.”
The inaccuracies in the estimates get compounded, according to Cifelli. “Computer models are limited in what they’re able to portray accurately because we’re not able to get deep, rich data across the entire globe,” he said.
An Alberta clipper is expected to impact New Jersey Thursday night or Friday morning, depending on the exact timing, Cifelli said. He doesn’t expect it to be a big deal, bringing maybe an inch or two to northern New Jersey while southern New Jersey might see just rain showers from it.
Winter isn’t over yet, though. “We might have something on the horizon for the Super Bowl,” Cifelli said.