The bollixed weather forecast…
Good morning, Netizens...
1:30 AM Sunday
If you haven't discovered on your own, meteorology as practiced here in Spokane is far from a perfect science. If one gave any credence to the weather forecasts being handed out Friday night through Saturday morning by the various weather forecasters for all three television stations, they missed the mark. Everyone spoke in proper terms of awe about the first really HUGE snow storm that was about to pummel the Spokane area, and how we were about to get as much as 11 inches of snow in town. KREM-2's Tom Sherry warbled on and on about what a significant storm this was like a jaybird with its balls stuck in the electric fence, but took the weekend off. Smart man. I wouldn't drive on packed ice and snow under these conditions either unless I was forced to do so.
What was truly funny is that as early as 9:00 AM Saturday morning, anyone who actually knows how to interpret NEXRAD weather radar already was certain that the big storm was fizzling, disintegrating right before our eyes, and that the best we got on the North Side of Spokane was about an inch and one-half to two inches of snow. Unfortunately KHQ-TV now is the only morning news-and-weather game in town on Saturdays, and they continued broadcasting the dire weather forecast long after the storm had fizzled. Now that was funny.
The one part of the weather forecast they did manage to get correct was that, hard on the heels of this snow storm-that-tried was a deep cold front with wind, which did manage to hit Spokane nearly on-schedule. At 1:30 this morning, unofficially the temperature stands at 9 degrees with winds averaging 15 MPH gusting to 25 MPH. The Deep Freeze has arrived.
The equally bad part is what little snow we did get will continue to stick around until the temperature rises well above zero, sometime later in the week according to the current forecast. Street de-icer doesn't work at such temperatures. They will have to either sand the hills and intersections or put up with lots of accidents and people carping at Queen Mary.
Dave