One of our local TV stations prides itself on its weather coverage and whenever there's even a chance of a bad storm they issue what they call a "First Alert," and begin talking about it as much as three days or more ahead. Of course, like most TV stations, their signal reaches a wide area--in our case from the Jersey shore to nearly Lancaster, from southern Delaware to the Poconos. That means, in most cases, a wide range of impact for most weather events.
Case in point: Starting early this week, they began talking about a winter storm coming in late Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and predicting rain changing over to snow, with freezing rain or sleet mixed in, and snow totals anywhere from one to six inches. Our particular neighborhood, located on the famed I-95 corridor, was told to expect one to three inches, followed by below-freezing temperatures which would rapidly turn everything to ice.
So, what happened? Well, it started raining around midnight on Wednesday, just as they said, and turned to snow about 10 AM Thursday. But the temperatures stayed above freezing throughout, so the snow never accumulated--not even on unpaved surfaces. It just hit the relatively warm water already on the ground and melted.
Temperatures did plummet--but not until after dark (it's about 16 degrees as I write this), long after any rain water left had either seeped into the ground or run into the storm sewers, so the warnings of "black ice" (at least around us) were false alarms as well.
I think the TV meteorologists have to begin targeting their forecasts more closely.
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