Are snow accumulation forecasts generally overdone?
Bruce Rose, The Weather Channel, Atlanta, GA; and J. Koval, E. Floehr, and E. Floehr Amongst weather forecasters in the public and commercial domains, there is anecdotal evidence that short-term weather predictions (6-48 hours ahead) of snowfall accumulation are generally overdone or overpredicted in amount and incidence. Moreover, it is thought these biased predictions are evident across the entire winter season, and occur irrespective of snowfall intensity or amount, geographic region, or forecast provider. Yet there is little or no published documentation of this phenomenon to be found in the literature. While there may be some precautionary or preparedness value in providing worse-case scenarios in winter storm prediction, a persistent or large bias of day to day snowfall prediction would seem less than optimal in serving typical consumers of weather information. Consistently biased or dire snowfall predictions can lead to the same negative consequences associated with other foreca
