Snowstorm recap and a look back at how we did

Forecast

Actual Snow Totals

Last week, the First Warn Weather team anticipated the largest snowfall of the season to impact the Stateline Sunday morning.  I noticed that many viewers on social media were upset that all the local meteorologists had slightly different snowfall amounts forecasted.  Most local TV station weathercasters around the Stateline have accredited meteorology degrees from different schools around the country. With those different backgrounds, each individual meteorologist has and will continue to have differing opinions when looking at the vast amount of computer model forecasts and deciding which ones are most believable.  They will also use prior forecasting knowledge and experience to give what they believe to be the most accurate and dependable forecast.

I'd like to share with you how my specific forecast panned out. The two images above compare what I forecasted Saturday afternoon for Saturday night and Sunday morning's snow storm versus actual snow totals.

The placement of the snow was fairly accurate: far southeastern counties in Northern Illinois received minimal snowfall.  Northwestern counties, including much of southern Wisconsin, saw the most snow.  The amounts were also fairly accurate though I overestimated higher end amounts for our extreme northwestern counties.  As I go into future forecasting situations I will now have a better understanding of how different computer models did or did not handle this snow event on a large and small scale along with my own personal biases of what I perceived would happen.

Here's a look at snow totals city-by-city. - MT & First Warn Weather Intern Stephanie Gizzi