All in all, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012, was an average day for forecasters in the United States.
Meteorologists at The Weather Channel's Global Forecast Center had a few strong thunderstorms to watch in West Texas, but otherwise there wasn't much going on stateside.
(Watch The Weather Channel all day Tuesday for complete coverage of Superstorm Sandy)
There was an area of potential tropical development circled in the Caribbean, but that's typically a favored area for development anyway in October. And while we were concerned for Haiti and other Caribbean nations, most computer forecast models were taking this disturbance out to sea without any direct effect on the U.S. mainland.
But late that night, the most reliable computer forecast model in the business showed a powerful low pressure system coming up from the tropics and slamming into the New Jersey coast eight days later.
When that model data landed on forecasters' computer screens early on the morning of the 22nd, meteorologists were jolted awake.
Senior meteorologist Stu Ostro recalls it well. "I had out-of-town travel planned, and so I was keenly aware of the models both professionally and personally," he said.
This ominous forecast, made by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts – the ECMWF computer forecast model – was a standout at the time. It was predicting a weather event virtually unprecedented in modern weather observation.
Naturally, forecasters had a healthy dose of skepticism, especially after this European forecast model botched forecasts of Tropical Storm Debby earlier in the season.
There are more pages to this article. Use the link to look at the rest of the article.
No comments:
Post a Comment