Philly/NYC NWS Inconsistencies

[RU848789]

This is at least the second time this season that there were huge discrepancies between the Philly and NYC NWS offices, with the differences most acutely pronounced right here, where I live, in Middlesex County, New Jersey. The Philly office is predicting up to 1" of snow overnight before the changeover to rain after a brief period of sleet/ZR and then heavy rain during the day with a high in the low 40s. But the Upton/NYC office is predicting 4-6" of snowfall in neighboring Union County, directly to our north, before a later changeover to eventual rain with a high in the upper 30s. Now, I can understand a modest increase in snowfall forecast, since they're trying to forecast for whole counties and certainly, on average Union would get more than Middlesex in a classic snow-to-rain event, but nowhere near that sharp of a change. At worst, there ought to be overlap in the snowfall predictions, e.g., 1-2" for Middlesex and 2-4" for Union.

Possibly even worse, Philly only has Morris County, which barely borders Union County on a small part of its SE (warm) side, getting 1-2" of snow, when it almost always gets more snow than Union County or any other of the metro NYC counties that directly border NYC in a snow to rain scenario, as it's well N and W (and further inland and at higher elevation, all of which contribute to its colder temps and slower intrusion of warm air from the ocean) of almost all of these locations - all of which are in the 4-6" snowfall prediction by the NYC office.

So much for office coordination. And the NYC media are all over the map with some calling for 1-2" in the immediate NYC area, some calling for 2-4" and at least one met calling for 3-6" in the same area. Of course, I'm hoping for the latter, as I'd love to get more snow here. And Gary Grey won't even issue a snowfall map, as he thinks most of the snow will melt - although on this one, I think he's just embarrassed to have been downplaying this event for days, only to have to upgrade its impact at this late stage, tonight. I guess I'll have to just use my eyes.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/ ... nty=njc023
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/ ... nty=njc039
http://www.millenniumweather.com/winter/cast2.html

[RU848789]

Interest obviously was low, but for those few of you who may have been interested, looks like the Philly office did a much better job on its forecast than NYC. In northern Middlesex County, we got 1/2" of snow, followed by 1/4" of sleet and maybe 1/16" of freezing rain, followed by hours of heavy rain. Same story exactly 9 miles north of Metuchen in southern Union County. And folks I work with said they had no more than 1-2", even as far NW of here as Chatham and Livingston. And NYC didn't get more than an inch either.

[wx247]

I understand what you are talking about. One county south of us is the NWS Tulsa Forecast Area and one county SE is the NWS Little Rock Forecast Area. I am in the NWS Springfield Forecast Area so forecasts in these areas sometimes vary a lot. They do try to coordinate their forecasts some, but it is not always possible due to differences in opinion when reading model data.

[FLguy]

that kind of surprizes me because OKX is usually a fairly conservative office.