Meteorological Images of March 2013


A Matter of Degrees

Image credit: NOAA

And, last but not least, the most notorious happening in weather in the U.S. in March 2013.  During the storm which got the "S" name on The Weather Channel's list - Saturn - the atmosphere in the nation's capital was teetering on the edge between being just cold enough for snow or a little too warm, while just to the west there were big accumulations in places such as Front Royal. The difference between, say, 72 and a few degrees higher usually doesn't matter much in weather, but the difference between 32 and 38 sure can!

This graph is of a "short range ensemble forecast" (SREF) model prediction of temperatures for Reagan National Airport for March 6-7.  The lines show "ensemble members," in which a bunch of forecasts are made by the model with the goal being to depict a range of possible outcomes and the degree (pun intended) of uncertainty.  Well, in this case the actual temperatures - the dots - were consistently higher throughout the storm than most of those members, and increasingly outside the range on the afternoon of the 6th, a key time for potential snow accumulations.  That meant the difference between "Snowquester," as some were calling the storm, and it turning into "Noquester."

(MORE IMAGES: Jan 2013 | Feb 2013 | 2012)

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