NBCWashington

We have temperature and rain/snow records that go all the way back to the late 1880s in the DC area. This is very helpful to see what has happened in past years in our region. One of the biggest factors that we use in our Winter Forecast is the El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. ENSO looks into the temperatures of the water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. That data only goes back to the 1950s, so our subset of data is somewhat limited with that. - Doug

Watches, warnings and advisories … weather alerts are all issued by the National Weather Service (NWS). So a tornado warning, severe thunderstorm watch, winter weather advisory, high wind watch will always be issued by the NWS. As media, it is our job to communicate what the alert means, what area it covers, essentially what you can expect.

As far as making our forecast, we look at many different computer models. A few of these models are also run by the NWS. We also look at models produced by Canada, Europe, private companies, etc. All weather alerts are directly available to the public, our local link in Washington is https://www.weather.gov/lwx/. Here you’ll not only see any alerts but see the government forecast as well (we, as media, create our own forecasts which are typically very similar). Most computer models are also available to the public. Check out the Penn State e-wall: http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/ewall.html. The European model is a major model that is not available to the public unless you pay a fee to subscribe to the information.

I think everyone should have access to the government data, which they do. The problem is when non-professionals try to make their own forecasts based on this data, creating hype and misinformation - Amelia

Ha, I love it! My forecast is 70 chance chance he re-signs! Let’s GO NATS! - Doug

Edit: Re-sign

Hey there and hello to you and your wife! Thanks so much for writing in and for watching.

Technology is advancing very quickly. We are sending up new satellites all the time which help us to produce a much better picture of the weather around the globe. Those satellites also help to provide key information to our weather models which are also constantly improving. When I started in this business 20 years ago, we were only doing 5 day forecasts. About 15 years ago we went to the 7 day forecast and now we are able to put together a 10 day forecast with reasonable confidence. Some systems, like the bigger storms we get are a little easier to forecast days out, but we still have issues with those marginal storms in regards to temperatures and precip type. That’s still the toughest part for us.

Thanks again,

Doug

Hey there and thanks for the question! Also, I loved my wings and LOVED the World Series victory. As for snowfall in our area, January and February have always been the snowiest months and continue to be. We do not average much snow at all for the month of December. That being said, we have been seeing a few more storms in the month of March and I am expecting that again this season as well. Is this a trend or just something we have seen more of lately, we will see. Thanks again for your question and thanks for watching. - Doug