Accuweather Releases Spring Forecast

[Chase K]

Accuweather Spring Forecast

Accuweather released its spring forecast today and the threat for severe weather this spring is higher across much of the Deep South up to the Midwest areas.

 

[Warren Faidley]

This forecast is for fun only. It's rarely accurate this far out.

 

[Chase K]

This forecast is for fun only. It's rarely accurate this far out.

You’re right on that.

 

[Matt Zumbrunn]

If it brings us rain, Ill take some severe weather. It will be interesting to see how the drought from oklahoma north will affect things.

 

[JamesCaruso]

If it brings us rain, Ill take some severe weather. It will be interesting to see how the drought from oklahoma north will affect things.

I think we already know, from what we have seen over the past few years, that the drought will have an adverse impact on our upcoming chase season. Sad to see ”Exceptional” drought all throughout western Kansas, which includes some of my favorite chase country…

Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor

droughtmonitor.unl.edu

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I'm hopeful with fuel prices increasing again that some of the action will push itself toward the Mississippi River Valley including Iowa, Illinois etc. The terrain here is pretty good to chase in, great road network. No drought going on here. Just need some solid severe setups to play with this spring. That was something missing last year was organized severe weather setups locally. The synoptic setups we did get were too strongly forced. meridional flow, or a mess with morning rain and storms.

 

[Mike Smith]

Actually, if I had to guess, I would think AW's forecast is pretty good. It would be just a guess.

That said, as far as I know, none of the seasonal outlooks have any kind of consistent skill. I stopped posting them on my blog several years ago after I had a several-season informal validation of them.

If it were up to me, our science would stop issuing public seasonal outlooks.

 

[Matt Zumbrunn]

I think we already know, from what we have seen over the past few years, that the drought will have an adverse impact on our upcoming chase season. Sad to see ”Exceptional” drought all throughout western Kansas, which includes some of my favorite chase country…

Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor

droughtmonitor.unl.edu

Dont need to tell me. My pond is down ~6 ft. On days it is warm and windy (and I can work from home or am off) I spend peak burning time at the fire station so hopefully we can catch a start quickly.

 

[Mike Smith]

Actually, none of the forecasts beyond 30 days have any consistent skill.

 

[Jeff Duda]

As is typical of a private, for-profit entity attempting to do something outlandishly risky for the sake of attention or sensationalism, this forecast pretty much fails Karl Popper's Falsifiability Principle. The forecast can't be shown to be wrong because insufficient information was provided; what does "moderate" mean?

Although the remainder of it does not violate the principle of a testable theory, the fact remains that if you give Accuweather the benefit of the doubt with the meaning of "higher" as in "higher than 'moderate'", then that's a fairly low bar to top. Also, their forecast is pretty similar to the map of climatology for any severe weather in the middle of that period (mid-April):


So they're basically going with climo except nudging the bulk of the area eastward a tad and maybe extending the northern flank of the climo area northward into the upper Midwest. Those are the regions where any skill could be had - as going with climo offers no chance for a skillful forecast, accurate or not.

I doubt Accuweather will provide any kind of quantifiable verification metric of this forecast after the fact. Qualitative only, which is why such a forecast simply cannot be considered scientific in any way.

 

[Mike Smith]

Jeff,

FYI: Actually, AW provides a more detailed version to its paying clientele. That stated, not sure why you are singling out AccuWeather, the Weather Channel's is no better. The NWS's own stats show their outlooks have no consistent skill.

Before I sold WeatherData, Incorporated to AccuWeather we refused to issue any forecast longer than 10 days because, after considerable internal investigation, found we could not do them consistently well. We only did the 10 days on request. I wish the rest of the profession would adopt that position.

Mike

 

[Warren Faidley]

Very similar to the forecasts issued by everyone at this point in time, based on a strong El Niño. I'm still waiting for the social media stunt people to release their spring "end of the world," severe forecasts, so I can start biting my nails down to the bone and maybe give up chasing because it's gonna be so "insane." I recall last year when one PhD Climatologist called for earth-sucking events in May, a month that was El Dudo. The trick here is to always say it's going to be crazy so you can always refer back to your statement and sound like Nostradamus. No remembers if you were wrong. So I am officially calling for the most insane May and June in recorded history.

 

[Mike Smith]

No remembers if you were wrong.

My experience is the opposite. WaPo's Capital Wx Gang has a story on this today. I highlight a woman who is still mad about a forecast from 1977! "When We are Right, No One Remembers; When We are Wrong, No One Forgets!"

 

[Jeff Duda]

Jeff,

not sure why you are singling out AccuWeather, the Weather Channel's is no better. The NWS's own stats show their outlooks have no consistent skill.

I don't disagree with you on the latter statements. I am focusing on AccuWeather because that is the focus of this thread and it's all I see in this thread. If someone wants to post similar maps from TWC or any other source, I'd be happy to criticize (or laud, if I see reason to) them as well.

However, I openly express my skepticism for any organization to produce any particularly skillful or useful generic seasonal forecast of overall severe weather activity this far in advance. That's one reason you seldom see any research institutes (e.g., universities, labs, NOAA) produce such maps - they know how difficult it is to do and how likely any given forecast is to be pretty badly wrong, and also know that sticking to climatology is the safest bet at this point. There has been work on this over the past few years, and some insights are being made, but not at the level that is expressed in these commonly revealed forecast graphics.

 

[Mike Smith]

That's one reason you seldom see any research institutes (e.g., universities, labs, NOAA) produce such maps - they know how difficult it is to do and how likely any given forecast is to be pretty badly wrong

Except that NOAA does 45-day daily forecasts.