Let me start by saying that the forecast for snow, which is always a challenge, proved excellent. All along we said Harris County would be too warm for anything to stick, but if you drove up I-45, you’d run into the snow and plenty of folks did! Here are some amounts we found:
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Given the heavier amounts and locations (even to southern Montgomery County we saw snowball fights), which of the models did the best predicting? Honestly, no single model won, which is why meteorologists look at all of them when we come up with our forecast! The two big global models, the American (GFS) and the European, gave a solid general location of where the snow would fall, but neither went south far enough and both lacked on amounts, staying in the 2″ range:
On the other hand, the Canadian model had the location pretty on target for our area, but the 8-9″ of snow was hard to find although Grapeland in Houston County did have more than 7″:
The Canadian is below followed by the North American Model, or NAM, which was closest of all with location and amounts, although it took the snow line way too far south -- all the way to the beach!
So, not to labor the point, but when you wonder just which model we look at when forecasting, the answer is ALL of them. Rarely does one model perform 100%, but if you know the strengths and weaknesses of each of them you can usually come up with a pretty decent forecast. And if you have enough snow, you can come up with a really fabulous snowman:
I hope you enjoyed the winter weather and now prepare for a cold week ahead with freezing overnight temperatures the next couple of nights!!
Frank