MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract: Overnight on March 14th and March 15th, a climatologically anomalous snowstorm hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Forecasts leading into this event predicted large amounts of snow, however, forecasts for the Mid-Atlantic (especially in the DC area) were overpredicted. Understanding the progression of the storm and the errors made in forecasting it can help us properly forecast future storms. Communicating the reasons for the failure to properly forecast the storm equally is important, as building the public’s trust in forecasters can help mitigate future damage in severe weather events.

Reader's Profile: If you all messed up this storm, how can we trust you now?

Reader's Response: I understand your frustration with the inaccuracy in forecasts: weather is very finicky and unstable. However, an analysis of a past weather event is something we can do that we can be much more accurate with. Instead of having to use model predictions and forecasters' intuition, we can use the actual data and see exactly what happened. This gets rid of all the uncertainty in our work, which means the accuracy we have is much higher, and I would even say as trustable as a scientific article.

Good plan on your split document. I will also say that you cannot make all the people happy all the time, especially with weather prediction. :)

However, you could include some brief discussion about probability and chances. Perhaps a sports analogy would help with this.

Again, not possible to deal with all the crabby people out there, yet, sometimes, a small lesson can help.