BIG, HISTORIC storm… yes, it was.

There, I said it. Boy it was fun being on twitter earlier on Thursday. I was sort of amazed how many people already counted this recent storm out while it was still snowing at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour (as advertised)… you know, before the storm was done.

What amazed me more, is that there was still (luckily, tiny) minority trying to downplay the storm after the fact. I’m not sure what these people’s special interest is? It seemed many of them were really quiet angry that people stayed safe at home and allowed MnDOT to clear a snowfall so large that it’s only happened four other times in 32 years.

That gets me to another point of some contention. Yes, this snowfall was indeed historic. I don’t know what others think, but if an event happens at that frequency--- literally a handful of times in a generation, I consider that historic. I think we tend to think of snowstorms as a quintessential Minnesota thing, but we actually don’t get that big of storms. Snowfalls over 12 inches are not common. We only average about 4 snowstorms per year, and of those total hundreds of storms documented since 1884, only 4% of them have gotten to 13 inches or greater.

In fact, a storm that gets to 13 or more inches lands you in our top 24 now storms. This storm is tied for number 23, so yes, a top 4% storm. It also very nearly tied a 114 year record for the date. We received 6.2 inches of our 13.1 inch storm total from 12 a.m. Thursday through noon Thursday. Had we gotten 0.2 inches more, it would have broken the very old daily record also.

And, oh yeah, that 13.1 inch official observation at the MSP airport was just one of many observations. Get this: there were more totals within the Twin Cities metro area HIGHER than that than lower than that. Go tell the people in Apple Valley shoveling out 20 inches of snow that this storm was a ‘dud.’ Or the 16.7 inches in Northeast Minneapolis or the 16.4 inches in Hopkins, the 17 inches in Cambridge, etc. etc.

This was also the SECOND top 25 snowfall we’ve had in the Twin Cities this winter season. That’s a major deal. That hasn’t happened in 38 years, since 1985 and only four other times on record:

Now to the forecasts…

While I’m not going to reason or defend others’ forecasts, I sure will my own. I was going to repost screen shots of my video forecasts the last few days but though, nah, that’s not my job, that’s yours if you don’t believe numbers. I talked at nauseum about snow to water ratios, why computer models themselves were over doing it and why a forecast MUST calculate their own ratios. Sadly, raw computer model output gets posted online showing the most extreme values and that becomes some people’s expectation.

My forecast for the second round snowfall (which was always going to be the bigger of the two rounds), was about 10-11 inches for the Twin Cities area. Guess what? It was 9 inches on the nose at MSP airport with many areas coming in 12 inches. In SCIENCE, we consider that a VERY good forecast, especially considering the variables surrounding BIG events are more difficult than SMALL events.

If 18 hours of notice wasn’t enough, here’s what I forecasted Monday for the second round:

Yup, nailed it! BUT, if I stuck to 9, I would have left out the majority of the metro that saw closer to 12+ Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. That’s why we use ranges… because, well, individual results may vary. I don’t like having to ‘toot my own horn’ so to speak but if people are going to come at meteorologist and lump every forecast together and then not even understand the forecasts, I will.

Now I know there were official forecasts that were as high as 25 inches from the National Weather Service. I never forecasted that high, but that doesn’t mean they ‘blew it.’ They were never forecasting that either, that was their upper range, or 10% chance value. You can count on a range in snow being your minimum and maximum probable range. ALL forecasters forecasted two rounds of snow and I most forecasted a late Wednesday night/early Thursday BURST of snow. I know I sure did, and I was thoroughly impressed that the 4am-8am snow burst panned out as I, and others thought.

When confronted with the data and facts, some are even then trying to even deny the measurements (boy this sounds familiar from 2020 and 2022?). Some trolls questioned that any observation more than a foot must have been a drift. Well folks, no, it doesn’t work like that. The majority of reports that come into the National Weather Service are trained observers. This includes an actual meteorologist, Chris Reese, who measured 20 inches in Apple Valley. In case you’re curious, this is how snow is measured:

So let’s have a laugh and get back to the “boy I wish I had a job I could be wrong and get paid” jokes, but in all seriousness let’s relish a historic snowfall and be thankful how pretty damn good forecasts are in 2023, even the computer models that tended to over-do it. It’s all come a long, long way since even the 1991 Halloween Blizzard, which thankfully…. Remains on the record books.