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In the Hot Seat, Tracking Snow's Advance
Lee said his meteorologists know each model's strengths and weaknesses. "If it was a perfect system, there probably wouldn't be much of a need for forecasters," he said. "But it's not. Limitations remain. And that's where our forecasters come in."
As Lee sat before a bank of computer screens depicting versions of the coming storm, he showed how the model forecasts could diverge.
  Steve Rogowski, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's office in Sterling, tracks a snowstorm. The Washington area is expected to get as much as 10 inches of snow today. (By Michel Du Cille -- The Washington Post) |
One, the Global Forecast System, or GFS, predicted maximum local accumulations of about 10 inches. But another, the North American Mesoscale model, or NAM, forecast maximum accumulations of about four inches.
"We're in a nice position when the models come together in what we call a coincident solution," Lee said. "Those are our best days.
"This," he said, "is a nice challenge for us."
Rogowski, who was in the forecasting hot seat yesterday afternoon, said he was analyzing four or five model forecasts as well as other data.
Lee said today's storm is the result of two systems -- one from the gulf, the other from the upper Midwest -- that merged overnight in southern Mississippi. The system's center was expected to be over South Carolina by midday today and over North Carolina's Outer Banks by tonight.
Lee said it was expected to slide north off the New Jersey coast early tomorrow and "bomb out" -- rapidly intensify -- as it rumbled across New England. Accumulations of a foot or more of snow were forecast there. "Looks like the jackpot could be up in southern New England come Sunday," Lee said.
Tomorrow's forecast in the Washington area was for cloudy and cold conditions with a chance of light morning snow.
