I would like to point out that, once again, the forecast was wrong.
Storms were predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday. Both days were bone dry.
Thursday called for a slight chance of isolated thunderstorms.
UPDATE: From Royal Norman
Pretty much totally unexpected ... even as the initial storms developed the Weather Service, and frankly yours truly, were in denial. The atmosphere, or what we thought we knew about the atmosphere at the time, didn't seem ready for such an outbreak. It seem the storms would only be a southern Arizona deal last night. And yet it happened.Posted by Vox at August 29, 2008 04:46 PM | general
Now I remember you calling meteorologists D+ students. Your bad.
The Arizona summer monsoon presents one of the toughest forecast problems in weather. I attended a dinner where the head of the National Severe Storms Lab, after spending a month in Phoenix directing a thunderstorm research project, said roughly...
"We thought we knew a lot about thunderstorms until we came to Arizona."
So look at it this way... Arizona weather is entertaining..., surprising.. since nobody can forecast it.
Oh, and the computer models that make the bad predictions are the same kind (and in one case, the same model) as used to forecast global warming.
Go figure.
Posted by: John Moore at August 29, 2008 08:36 PM