Prognostications Late Last Week Fell Short

The past several weeks have been a period of unsettled weather that has been good news for the Garden State, which was dealing with moderate drought for much of the first four months of 2012. However, recent forecasts, which called for more in the way of rain and severe weather have been off the mark.

First, there was the late season Nor’easter towards the end of April that was supposed to bring a good deal of rainfall to much of New Jersey. Flood watches were issued by the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly ahead of what was supposed to be anywhere between 2.5 and 3.5 inches. However, actual rainfall amounts fell well short of that.

While the storm did bring much needed rainfall, it brought about an inch less than expected in many locations. Move forward to late last week. A storm system was forecast to bring strong to severe thunderstorms into New Jersey as well as other parts of the Mid-Atlantic. The Weather Channel and Accu-Weather at WABC in New York did indicate storms would be significant, and could be the first significant outbreak of the year. The National Weather Service noted the possibility in a Hazardous Weather Outlook, but by Friday, the storms didn’t materialize in Central Jersey, and much of the inclement weather stayed to the south.

The next day, Saturday, the Accu-Weather forecast called for clouds in the early part of the day, but clearing in time for the appearance of the much anticipated Super Moon. Unfortunately, the clouds had other ideas, and stayed around not only past the scheduled 11:34 PM emergence of the largest moon of the year, but also well into Sunday. Furthermore, the forecasts for part of this week has some issues. Although the mid-week forecast was fairly accurate, it did indicate more significant rain on Wednesday, which did not happen.

I know that I’m being critical here, and understand that forecasts are not always perfect. I probably noticed these issues more than I usually would because I was anticipating the severe weather on Friday, and the Super Moon on Saturday. So, these forecasts had me scratching my head a bit, and I wanted to write about it.