The No. 1 college basketball team in the nation can have a bad day, and so can the world’s best weather forecasting model.
The European model made an epically bad snowfall forecast for the Washington area Tuesday, less than 24 hours before the first flakes would fall. It predicted a jaw-dropping 15 to 20 inches of snow in Washington.
Such an amount would have ranked this as the area’s biggest March snowstorm on record. It would have crippled the region and also likely resulted in hundreds of thousands of power outages because of the weight of snow on tree limbs.
In reality, about 3 to 6 inches fell.
In the weather world, this kind of model failure might be the equivalent of the No. 1 seed University of Virginia losing to the 16 seed University of Maryland Baltimore-County (UMBC) in the NCAA basketball tournament.
Just as U-Va. performed consistently at the highest level during the college basketball regular season, the European model has long been considered first class in the weather prediction business.
Models are evaluated on how well they replicate weather patterns, and, for years, the European has ranked at the top, outperforming peers in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.
But just as a great basketball team can have a lapse, so, too, can the best weather model. And this week, both folded when the stakes couldn’t have been higher.
While U-Va.’s humiliating loss was just a game, the European model’s egregious error had societal consequences, as it motivated some forecasters to wrongly increase snowfall forecasts for the D.C. area, including the National Weather Service.
We just watched the new European model come in and our jaws dropped. We may not be done with (upward) adjustments to the snowfall forecast.
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) March 20, 2018
(Note: The Capital Weather Gang decided to not change its most likely snowfall forecast based on the European model, after reviewing other models and deciding it was unrealistic.)
The shocking failures of the U-Va. basketball team and the European model have no doubt eroded the trust of their adherents. But both were built on strong foundations and should bounce back.
The European model is run on the most powerful computer and has the most advanced system for pulling in data.
U-Va. has Tony Bennett and the packline defense.
As the European model is my go-to forecasting tool, and I’m an avid Virginia fan, it has been a turbulent and unsettling week. But I still believe.