Who Do You Believe? Which Forecasters? Gotta Weather App You Trust? What's Your Favorite Model?

 

51 degrees in Raleigh.

Back to watching models for snow.

Because in January it's all about snow.

I have a small bit of snow in my very shaded, backyard that'll probably melt away today. We are back to watching models and weather apps and in the long range they are about as reliable. 

Reliability in forecasting is one part gift, one part knowing the lay of the land geographically and also knowing which models to trust and when to trust them. Anyone can go on Tic Toc and scream in a scared voice how it's going to snow so much they may get 15 feet and yeah perhaps for many it's entertainment as the more bizarre someone is on social media, the more clicks they get..... but do you really trust them? I have a brother who sends me the most bizarre scatological humor that he seems to find funny, and while I've known people with scatalogical humor they usually are funny but some of the stuff found online is just bizarrely strange. You watch someone dressed like Carmen Miranda promising someone like my brother that Miami will get snow and personally if she could do the Merengue while giving her forecast I might find her amusing too.........but no...........Miami is not getting a blizzard and the Panhandle isn't really forecast to get 15 feet of snow. But a good part of Florida may freeze, get some snow and how but how far South will that go? It has snowed in Miami before, but it was just snowflakes melting in the Florida sunshine on their way down.

As we say in Miami "yeah... NO!" but hey social media is often all about entertainment!

Many on X like to complain about weather apps as they almost always promise you snow on the 10th day, every day in the same way the GFS often hits New Orleans with a Cat 5 at the end of it's very long run. After a few days of slamming Nola with a Cat 5 the same model hits Miami with a Cat 5 Hurricane, before going back to Nola again. Note neither New Orleans nor Miami were hit by a hurricane directly, let alone a Category 5 in 2024. But hey long range models party on........giving you promises and more promises and each time you click on the link like Charlie Brown kicking Lucy's football.

Note Francine did make landfall in Louisiana.

Terrebonne Parish.

Not New Orleans.

Miami did get some watches and warnings.

But no Cat 5 in Miami in 2024!

Just those memories of model graphics!

Weather apps and models do this in Winter too!

They always promise snow falling on the 10th day.

Reality is that as much as meteorologists often make fun of weather apps and long range models, we all watch, we all sneak a peek and we don't expect them to verify more than 3 days out for a Winter Storm.  To be honest it's a cheap thrill!

I'd rather people have a weather app on their main screen (and trust me many do not) than just watch random videos on TicToc or a meme on Facebook. There are some good meteorologists are on Tic Toc and some apps are more careful than others providing data. 

But we are far from a time in a galaxy long ago when your mother stood by the television watching the news waiting to see her favorite weather person tell her the weather. News is packaged these days and depending on your political beliefs you generally follow one feed or the other. I mean Lord Have Mercy, we can't get along long enough to stay on the same social media? Annoys me. A good friend I cared alot about who loved music used to tell me when Music Apps came out it was going to spoil everything as people would put in Jazz or Country, Classical or Opera into their specifications and never listen to anything else again. Hate to admit, but he was right. On a radio station you were likely to hear some song you might not have listened to otherwise and found a new love musically speaking.  Larry Cosgrove is as good with music as he is with weather and believe it or not I didn't know who Camila Cabello was but he did and suggested people watch her video. Generally I'm in North Carolina and she wasn't as popular here as she was in Miami where she grew up. My son's girlfriend actually was in Choir with her in high school, how cool is that? Small world in Southwest Miami.  But when you only listen to Jazz or Country you miss a lot out there in the rest of the world. Same thing goes for only sticking to one social media. 

As a young mother living on the West Coast in West LA I didn't know much about California weather, which by the way spoiler alert ....it doesn't get much "weather" so I spent alot of time reading up on Geology and the early history of Ranchos in LA. But, hey when it does rain it pours. I watched the local nightly news to catch "Dr. George" who was an Icon in the LA Basin and I learned a lot about Comma Clouds and the Pineapple Express and Santa Ana Winds. And, trust me when Dr. George pointed out a concern for Santa Ana Winds you KNEW some part of the Southland was going to burn. You KNEW and when I lived in Miami people trusted Bryan Norcross and when he was concerned on a new model and suggested the hurricane might do something different from the official forecast you listened and actually many ran to Publix to buy water "just in case" because when you have grown up on Miami Beach surrounded by water and you can't use the water coming out of the sink... you buy water "just in case" even if the struggling tropical storm has not become a hurricane yet if someone you trust says it might be a problem.

So go for it... watch models, tell time by models and keep checking your weather app to see if there's a snowflake on it but know anything past the five day in the winter weather world models rarely ever verify exactly! 

A possible snowstorm in the Carolinas....

....is currently over China.

Winter Storms form in real time, anything can happen or change and as Content Weather who used to be Cranky Weather who will always just be CW to me............said recently the winter storm we are all watching has not left China yet. He knows, he's wise and a voice worth listening to. (Notice I ignore rules I learned in English classes because it's 2025 and online has it's own grammar and anything goes)

Everything flows.

Those who know... know.

Atmosphere flows....

Dips.

Doesn't dip.

Phases.

Doesn't phase.

It's all so far away.

Check that flow out from the EPAC

It's been going on for months.

Southern Snow in play.

Stay tuned.

Personally wondering on Inauguration Weather.

Deep into January.

There have been some epic snow storms!

Sweet Snowy Dreams,

BobbiStorm

Ps Full Disclosure my app shows ice & rain...

..on the 9th and 10th day!

Like always.

But this time may verify.

Remember to step outside your box.

Outside your comfort zone.

Try some new dance steps :)