Cliff Mass has posted up a detailed post mortem of the fizzled storm of last Saturday evening. He acknowledges the forecasters missed and reveals what is needed for them to do better. He explains how and why they got it wrong. If you like understanding the weather, then this is for you.

Another reason to look into this fizzled storm relates to how we as communities respond to severe weather warnings. While we recognize no forecast is perfect, we do expect better within 24 hours and even 12 hours of an approaching storm. The technology is available to us and the weather experts know how to do it. So, the question is why are the forecasts wrong so often. Again, Cliff goes into it. Short answer: the Feds will not spring the money for radars and computers.  

I did my best on Friday and Saturday to update the storm information in my blog post. In retrospect, I did ok, especially the first post Friday evening. And my radar image on Saturday evening clearly showed how the storm was missing us. I was confident as my US Air Force service was with the Air Weather Service and I was given a good grounding in weather. I was stationed in Germany during the Cold War and we were weather central for European military forecasts. It has been a life long interest and study.

We will try to pay attention to future storm forecasts and provide some local refinements to them for Whatcom and Bellingham residents.