2012-02-21&22 Winter Storm Forecast

Taken from the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office for Chicago, IL

“By now, many of you have probably heard about a big storm coming next week and talk of it possibly being a big snow, but what is important to remember is that any forecast of a storm that far out holds a LOT of uncertainty. This storm is currently over 5000 miles away from Chicago located over data sparse regions of the northern Pacific Ocean, which has big implications on the ability of our forecast models to predict the storm. Our forecast models are fed by and rely upon observational data, so when a storm is out over the ocean the amount of observational data fed into the models is more limited, which can result in models producing less accurate forecasts than when the storm is over land.”

Check here to read more and view images of the forecasted storm…