How have NWS forecasts been performing for you?

[RyanSchilling]

Yesterday I encountered weather in the Sierra Blanca quite unlike what was predicted. On Friday the forecast for Saturday was sunny with mild winds of 10-15 mph.

What we experienced were punishing winds of at least 30-40 mph, gusts that pushed us around, and consistent cloud cover until late morning.

I've seen a lot about NWS and NOAA budget cuts and their effects on forecasting, but I don't know if I should read too much into my outing yesterday and my sample size of one.

How have forecasts been performing for you? Have you noticed any change?

[Veory]

Experienced similar yesterday on La Plata, but I think that's just bound to happen sometimes.

[Mtnman200]

Yesterday, Randy Mack and I climbed Pomeroy Mtn. and UN 13082 in the Sawatch. The forecast called for the usual nice weather in the morning and a good chance (40%) of afternoon rain and thunderstorms. We woke up to cloudy skies and were getting pelted with rain and high winds by 8 AM! That didn't keep us from our summits, but the actual weather was nothing like the forecast.

[jeffmpls]

I had a similar experience yesterday in RMNP climbing McHenrys. The forecast was 0% chance of rain, and it rained off and on from 3:00 am to 10:00 am.

[XterraRob]

How much does cloud seeding impact weather modeling?

[someguy9]

A week or 2 ago I was climbing g&t and the forecast was perfectly correct, with increasing clouds throughout the day and slight precipitation at around 5 pm. I have been making sure to check mountain forecast, opensno, etc on top of weather.gov just to verify what the weather will be.

[justiner]

Severe weather hits the US hard as key forecast offices reel from Trump cuts

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... trump-cuts

[cottonmountaineering]

How much does cloud seeding impact weather modeling?

IIRC cloud seeding is only performed during winter/early spring, so that would not really affect the past few months if at all

the biggest change to climate in recent years was switching to low sulfur fuel for cargo ships, im sure everyone has noticed since 2020 that the weather has been a bit different
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-ho ... l-warming/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/aqua/nasa ... -shipping/

on NOAA the forecast has been generally been worse in the past few months IMO

[JROSKA]

A week or 2 ago I was climbing g&t and the forecast was perfectly correct, with increasing clouds throughout the day and slight precipitation at around 5 pm. I have been making sure to check mountain forecast, opensno, etc on top of weather.gov just to verify what the weather will be.

Seems like this thread is about to degenerate into yet another enriching and dead end political discussion on 14ers.com. Before that occurs I'd like to give a +1 to this comment. Admittedly my sample size for this season so far is just one, a camp for Bel Ox, but I didn't have any issues with that NOAA forecast. It indicated instability on the first day during the drive and hike to camp (which there was), and a 0% precip day with light winds on summit day (which it was).

That said, I completely agree with the concept of surveying multiple sites and not just relying on one source. I always check NOAA.gov, mountain forecast, and something like windy.com and then I just form an opinion based on those comparisons. And I know that once I'm actually out in the elements I trust myself to be adaptable and flexible and that I will act accordingly if the weather doesn't seem to be panning out as I expected.

When I have a rough day in the mountains (and I've had my share), I'm as tempted as anyone to look to blame someone else. But for the past 15 years or so, I've found that this practice - surveying 3 separate sites and giving myself the final say in whether I head out or stay on the peak once I start the trip - goes a long way to stifle that temptation. I personally would never just trust completely in one source for my weather information because it would lead me into the bad habit of not thinking for myself, and ultimately, wanting to blame someone else for my decision to head up into the mountains.

[coupewx]

For what it's worth, both the ECMWF (blue, European) and GFS model (red, American) forecast scores of the large-scale circulation pattern (5-day 500 hPa geopotential heights averaged over the northern hemisphere) really started to tank in late June. There are some flow regimes that tend to be less predictable and we clearly entered one. There was also one in early May that the GFS did not handle well at all. In general, ECMWF's model usually handle these better than the GFS.

500hpa_anom_corr_gfs_ecmwf.jpeg

All the higher resolution models used by the NWS use the GFS as an initial condition and boundary condition to run, so quite a few errors can propagate downstream from the GFS even on shorter timescales. Even if NWS staffing remains the same, these are periods where predictability is always going to suffer a little bit, which might be amplified in extreme mountain environments.

[BratwurstGoblin]

I spent the last several days around Buena Vista, and I'd say the actual weather tracked pretty close to the forecast during the week with Friday morning being the exception. Had rain and wind developing much earlier around Princeton and Yale than expected.