This Week's Snow Totals vs Various Model Outputs

How many people continue to believe Facebook and Twitter posts showing model output images of snow storm amounts more than 5 days before it happens? Too many. 

Last week, I wrote why this a BIG mistake. Computer model outputs are to be used as guidance NOT Gospel.  The general public see these posts and treat these maps as actual forecasts by Meteorologists.  They spread like wildfire on social networks causing hype and in some cases paranoia! I lost track how many times I was asked directly "When is this huge snow storm coming? 20 inches in one day?" It wasn't IF the snow was coming but WHEN.

I saved several different model depictions of this "potential snow storm 6 and 7 days BEFOREHAND. Notice how dramatically the snow amounts changed from one day to another.

EUROPEAN DETERMINISTIC

Even the short term, higher resolution model within 24 hours of the event showed HUGE variation.

The FINAL totals...

Once again, trust the HUMAN not the COMPUTER OUTPUT!