The National Weather Service had previously been warning of the dangers of the impending “historic” storm expected to yield “crippling snowfall amounts” in a “life-threatening” blizzard. In the early hours of the morning, Gary Szatkowski, the lead meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service’s office, offered an apology for the inaccurate reporting 1 a.m. Tuesday though, writing on Twitter “My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public”, followed by “…this is a big forecast miss.”
The initial forecast was still correct in some respects though. Boston has still received the predicted amount in excess of 2 feet and some Long Island villages have seen 18-24 inches.
Residents of New York City who had been warned that 24-36 inches were conceivably expected had got only 6.3 inches by sunrise though, with the National Weather Service admitting only another 2 inches were likely to fall. This is far below the record 26.9 inches recorded in Central Park during 2006. As such, travel bans imposed since late Monday were lifted by early Tuesday. A blizzard warning had originally been spread across a 250-mile area.
Similarly, New Jersey had been predicted up to 18 inches but received as little as 3 inches. What was originally named the Blizzard of 2015 or Storm of the Century is now being billed as the forecasting Bust of the Century by several news outlets.
Weather forecasting has always included an element of uncertainty, even in today’s world where modern computers make forecasts more reliable than ever. It appears as though this was a genuine mistake on the meteorologists” part who found that the anticipated snowfall had simply failed to arrive.
