Accuweather's next Siberian Express

[SubTropicRay]

Frank Strait's forecast

Henry Margusity's forecast

More Frank Strait doom and gloom

[MattyB]

So it's gonna be 50 in North Florida? What's so bad about that? Am I missing something?

[SubTropicRay]

Watch the videos. Low 50's for highs in central Florida.

[bubba]

Interesting stuff! Wasn't that guy the first to put a jet-pack on his lunch box.

[surgeon83]

Oh boy. Living it up at 27 degrees Fahrenheit; I mean 27 degrees north.

[SubTropicRay]

No Bubba, he was Wonder Woman's boy toy.

[SunnyFl]

Watch the videos. Low 50's for highs in central Florida.

Those were..... highs???

Listening to Marquisty's video, it ended with the Euro showing a storm over GA and he indicated that the arctic air could be kept north of that, if I heard it right. There was also a mention about a chance of severe, and that agrees with NWS prediction yesterday of possible hail on Tuesday.

Also, I checked our 15-day forecast (yeah, I know about those long-range predictions) and the lowest temp was 48. Let's hope it doesn't get any worse than that.

But if Atlanta only reaches 32 for a high, then we're looking at a serious chill.

[gsn]

Ray,

Put down the MOUSE, and step away from the Accuweather website!

Accuweather and it's resident GURU's and their HYPE are aggravating your condition.

It would be nice if their dire predictions had some resembalance to Accuweathers own local 15 day forecast for east central Florida.

Like Sunny said the current 15 day forecast for Titusville only has one day forecast BELOW

45F,and that is Wednesday December 17th! Of course that forecast will CHANGE over the coming days,as it always does.

Tursday Dec 4 Low: 54 °FHigh: 73 °F

Friday, Dec 5 Low: 55 °FHigh: 72 °F

Saturday, Dec 6 Low: 52 °FHigh: 72 °F

Sunday, Dec 7 Low: 49 °FHigh: 67 °F

Monday, Dec 8 Low: 56 °FHigh: 69 °F

Tuesday, Dec 9 Low: 59 °FHigh: 74 °F

Wednesday, Dec 10 Low: 47 °FHigh: 70 °F

Thursday, Dec 11 Low: 53 °FHigh: 64 °F

Friday, Dec 12 Low: 58 °FHigh: 69 °F

Saturday, Dec 13 Low: 62 °FHigh: 76 °F

Sunday, Dec 14 Low: 54 °FHigh: 78 °F

Monday, Dec 15 Low: 48 °FHigh: 69 °F

Tuesday, Dec 16 Low: 47 °FHigh: 67 °F

Wednesday, Dec 17 Low: 42 °FHigh: 63 °F

Thursday, Dec 18 Low: 45 °FHigh: 61 °F

And some people WONDER why weather forecasters have somewhat dubious reputations,and their credibility is sometimes called into question?

[SubTropicRay]

Thanks Scott. Besides the fact that the models have (for now) dropped the mention of Siberian air, I'll drop a few extra Xanax.

[LJG]

I have started to put down sand bags here in SoCal to keep the cold back.

[tropicalb]

Len....

I have every fan available on full blast and pointing due north....

[SubTropicRay]

The threat seems to be over for Florida and the long range is calling for a warm Christmas.

[gsn]

The threat seems to be over for Florida and the long range is calling for a warm Christmas.

Ray,

Are you saying they were WRONG???

If they are NOW predicting a warm Christmas, you actually have me worried/nervous NOW!!!

Funny thing is, I bet you could give a weather forecast ,based on past historical data,and come out almost as good as these guys with their

super computers,and weather models!

[_Keith]

,,,Funny thing is, I bet you could give a weather forecast ,based on past historical data,and come out almost as good as these guys with their

super computers,and weather models!

You are right. Here are some quotes from:http://xcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2006/09/longe-range-weather-forecast-ii-still.html

Back at the beginning of summer,

the Curmudgeon conducted a little experiment to test the accuracy of long range

weather forecasts. Our conclusion, after a brief test of the data, was that the

five and ten day forecasts typically found on a weather website such as The

Weather Channel's Weather.com amount to no more than a toin coss in terms of

accuracy.

Ten Day Forecast

The ten day forecast improved a bit over the longer observation period, but still was just barely better than a coin toss. Out of 35 observation days (some days we had no data), the 10-day forecast was correct 18 times and incorrect 17 times, for a 51.4% accuracy rate. In short, there's really no point publishing a 10-day forecast with the current state of the art.

Five Day Forecast

The five day forecast stayed the same in terms of accuracy. It was correct on 23 out of 37 observation days, for a 62% accuracy rate.

What may be the most interesting observation here is that the five day forecast really wasn't much more accurate than the 10-day forecast. We would've expected that the five additional days would result in a vast improvement in the forecast, but it didn't. In other words, there's really not much point in having a 9-day, or an 8-day, or a 7-day or 6-day forecast either, because the extra days don't help the accuracy meaningfully.

[SubTropicRay]

Scott,

I can understand how my optimism makes you nervous. I'm not sure how to handle it myself

Ray

[spockvr6]

Scott,

I can understand how my optimism makes you nervous. I'm not sure how to handle it myself

Ray

Ray.....itll slowly wear on you and before you know it, youll be planting Lipstick palms

[koolthing78]

The ten day forecast improved a bit over the longer observation period, but still was just barely better than a coin toss. Out of 35 observation days (some days we had no data), the 10-day forecast was correct 18 times and incorrect 17 times, for a 51.4% accuracy rate. In short, there's really no point publishing a 10-day forecast with the current state of the art.

Five Day Forecast

The five day forecast stayed the same in terms of accuracy. It was correct on 23 out of 37 observation days, for a 62% accuracy rate.

What may be the most interesting observation here is that the five day forecast really wasn't much more accurate than the 10-day forecast. We would've expected that the five additional days would result in a vast improvement in the forecast, but it didn't. In other words, there's really not much point in having a 9-day, or an 8-day, or a 7-day or 6-day forecast either, because the extra days don't help the accuracy meaningfully.

But it depends on what they consider "incorrect" to be: If the temperature reached 72 when it was forecast to hit 74, is that considered a failure? If the rain event predicted 4 days out actually happened on the morning of the 5th day, would that be "incorrect"? I could micro-scrutinize anything to the point where I could prove it wrong. Given all the uncontrollable factors that go into creating the weather, it's amazing that meteorologists are able to do as much as they can. It is by no means an exact science, but neither are a lot of things--the difference is, most of those other things (equally succeptible to over-scrutiny) don't affect our lives as much when they don't pan out. And even when the "big" things don't come to fruition at all (like the "bad freeze" that started this thread), it's not like you can't see what happened when you go back and look at the history of the weather maps. The cold was still there, it just got intercepted by some other unforseen/unpredictable factor (which there's a lot of in weather, unfortunately). But it's not like the cold air vanished or they completely made it up--it was still there, it just behaved differently than they had expected (lucky for us). So in conclusion, I like my 10-day forecasts, darn it!--I just use them rationally, to get a feel for if there's anything I may or may not need to be watching closer down the road, not for planning a beach day based on the afternoon forecast high on thursday of next week.

[SubTropicRay]

So in conclusion, I like my 10-day forecasts, darn it!--I just use them rationally, to get a feel for if there's anything I may or may not need to be watching closer down the road, not for planning a beach day based on the afternoon forecast high on thursday of next week.

Ditto here.

[gsn]

So in conclusion, I like my 10-day forecasts, darn it!--I just use them rationally, to get a feel for if there's anything I may or may not need to be watching closer down the road, not for planning a beach day based on the afternoon forecast high on thursday of next week.

Ditto here.

Ray,

Your doctor and insurance company(prescriptions) are NOT going to be happy to read this!

]And even when the "big" things don't come to fruition at all (like the "bad freeze" that started this thread), it's not like you can't see what happened when you go back and look at the history of the weather maps. The cold was still there, it just got intercepted by some other unforseen/unpredictable factor (which there's a lot of in weather, unfortunately). But it's not like the cold air vanished or they completely made it up--it was still there, it just behaved differently than they had expected

Unforseen/unpredictable yeah that pretty much sums up the state of weather forecasting. Those damn BUTTERFLIES flying the wrong way across the EQUATOR fouls everything up!

As I have said many times when they can tell me what it will actually do tomorrow with a 90 percent or better accuracy rate. Then I will begin to heed their HYPE and WARNINGS of impending DISASTER 5 to 15 days away!!! Maybe they didn't make IT up, but they LOVE to embellish any possibility of a worst case scenario to the hilt! I beleive they take a class in that at meterology school!

[koolthing78]

]And even when the "big" things don't come to fruition at all (like the "bad freeze" that started this thread), it's not like you can't see what happened when you go back and look at the history of the weather maps. The cold was still there, it just got intercepted by some other unforseen/unpredictable factor (which there's a lot of in weather, unfortunately). But it's not like the cold air vanished or they completely made it up--it was still there, it just behaved differently than they had expected

Unforseen/unpredictable yeah that pretty much sums up the state of weather forecasting. Those damn BUTTERFLIES flying the wrong way across the EQUATOR fouls everything up!

As I have said many times when they can tell me what it will actually do tomorrow with a 90 percent or better accuracy rate. Then I will begin to heed their HYPE and WARNINGS of impending DISASTER 5 to 15 days away!!! Maybe they didn't make IT up, but they LOVE to embellish any possibility of a worst case scenario to the hilt! I beleive they take a class in that at meterology school!

Well, that was kind of my point. Say you go to your doctor who just put you on a cholesterol-lowering agent, and you tell him "Doc, I want to know EXACTLY how many points this will lower my cholesterol, and EXACTLY how long that will take." The doctor would probably look you in the eye and tell you to get the eff out of his office, because there's no way that's reasonably possible. There are just too many confounding factors, and it just so happens they're a lot more noticeable with something like the weather. But forecasts DO give you a general idea of the trend, and whether or not there's anything to keep an eye out for to see if it develops. I garauntee that without radars and vapor maps and fancy computer programs and meteorologists to interpret it all, we would be a lot more in the dark about cold events, hurricanes, etc. So is it a perfect science? Far from it. But it's kind of silly and unreasonable to expect that it would be, anyway. With that said, I DO agree with the hype factor, although to be fair it's sometimes more about weather geeks getting overly excited about things, than a deliberate attempt to deceive the public for ratings (though on tv that plays a big part of it). A late friend of mine--a meteorology student from Penn State--would get so excited about severe weather events, and giddily go on and on about what I (in my reverse pessimism strategy (I like interesting weather, too)) would consider the unlikely worst-case scenario. And I often criticized him for forecasting what he wanted to happen, rather than what was more likely to happen (cause despite my pessimistic down-playing, he would still get my hopes up, and it just drove me nuts!)