It’s the “crippling and potentially historic” blizzard that turned out to be neither.
“They were trying to out-drama each other,” architect Rebecca Uss in New York City said Tuesday, speaking of officials in the region who had warned of the coming snowstorm.
“In hindsight, it was overkill,” said Brian Beirne, who was sledding with his son Micah on New York’s Upper West Side. “It’s much ado about nothing.”
Some people in the Northeast are concerned the government cried wolf.
“They decided to close,” a woman named Anesah, who works with international students in Philadelphia, said of her workplace on Twitter. There “isn’t a flurry to be found. I don’t think they’ll ever give us off again. #crywolf.”
“This #snowFail does not bode well for civilian cooperation with the terms of the next snow emergency in NYC,” Lisa in New York tweeted.
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Still, “the forecast wasn’t too far off if you look at it as a whole,” says Miller. “The heaviest snow fell across much of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Long Island, and Massachusetts. Winds have gusted up to hurricane strength which was also in the forecast.” Predicted storm surge flooding also came to fruition, he said.
“But of course the headlines are going to come from New York City and New Jersey, where a forecast of more than two feet turned out to only be about half that,” Miller said. There were two feet of snow elsewhere, and “a miss of only 30 to 40 miles in a forecast that was first given 48 hours in advance is not that bad from a strictly forecasting perspective.”
But from a “practical perspective,” it’s a “big miss, and has major ramifications with business disruption, wasted resources and tax dollars, etc.,” Miller said.
CNN did note the discrepancy among forecasts on Monday, even as government officials were announcing closures.
“I just got the brand new models in just a minute ago. And one model says for New York City two inches — not two feet, two inches. The other model I looked at said 27 inches,” CNN meteorologist Chad Myers noted. “I hate it when models don’t agree to that extent.”
It’s not an exact science, and it’s important for people to know that, says Miller. “As meteorologists we must convey the uncertainty associated with these forecasts.”
