Biggest Busts?

[Paweatherguy1]

So, this storm got me thinking. What are your biggest busts as far as storms that were forecasted to rip you 24-48 hours out, but ended up busting badly.

 

Mine was the March 2008 OV blizzard. Two days before, we were looking at up to 2 feet of snow in Pittsburgh. Storm shifted west, we dryslotted, and I think ended up with 2 or 3 inches.

 

I know many of you will probably say March 2001.

 

[NortheastPAWx]

On the wrong side:

 

12/30/00: If I recall correctly there were talks of getting hit hard with 6"+. Wound up with partly cloudy skies.

Somewhere in 2001 or 02: There was talk of a big ice storm hitting overnight. Wound up with just rain.

 

On the positive side:

 

1/25/00: Forecast was flurries, wound up with several inches of snow. Led to an infamous column in our newspaper's old "Say So" column wherein a local meteorologist was told by a viewer "I just got done shoveling 8 inches of your flurries."

[Rick G]

Her name was debbie. I was 16...wrong bust....

 

Blizzard of 96, i seem to remember a prediction a prediction of 1 to 3 inches. That was during yhe morning news cycle. By 4 pm it was clear that this was a bust. We ended up near 27 inches.

[Paweatherguy1]

Feb 2010 was a giant bust for our locals. They held onto a 3-6 prediction on the evening news that evening when there was already 5 on the ground. We ended close to two feet.

Her name was debbie. I was 16...wrong bust....

Blizzard of 96, i seem to remember a prediction a prediction of 1 to 3 inches. That was during yhe morning news cycle. By 4 pm it was clear that this was a bust. We ended up near 27 inches.

[JamieOber]

Her name was debbie. I was 16...wrong bust....

 

Blizzard of 96, i seem to remember a prediction a prediction of 1 to 3 inches. That was during yhe morning news cycle. By 4 pm it was clear that this was a bust. We ended up near 27 inches.

 

 

Feb 2010 was a giant bust for our locals. They held onto a 3-6 prediction on the evening news that evening when there was already 5 on the ground. We ended close to two feet.

 

Blizzard of 96 was a huge bust the other way in Pittsburgh. AccuWx was the only one to have snow. NWS had partly sunny. 

[Wmsptwx]

This year everyone had us in a wsw for 5 to 9 inches of snow Feb. 8th. Reality was a 45 min snow line .4 inch accum.

[NortheastPAWx]

Rick G. - who forecasted the 1-3"?

 

I remember reading some old Wright-Weather archives and seeing a call for 2-4" for AVP about a day before the 96 storm. Lolno.

[Wmsptwx]

Probably tom clark or joe snedeker lol

[Itstrainingtime]

12/30/2000.

There were a few others back in the 70s that Jamie might have dates for.

[AlexP]

I grew up in NYC, so my "busts" are probably a little different from the rest of you...except for March 2001, of course. We ALL got screwed on that one. I remember two big busts when I was in high school in the late 1980s. I wish I could remember the dates. One was a 6-12 inch forecast that turned into a driving rainstorm in the middle of the 10 O'Clock News. Lloyd Lindsay Young was hyping this monster snowstorm on the air even though it had already changed to rain. I was screaming at the TV. The other was a major storm that had slammed DC and was expected to come up the coast, but instead went out to sea and left us with only flurries.

[jwilson]

The worst "bust" has to be March 2001.  It was so bad it got John Bolaris run out of town with death threats.  I remember that week the calls for a historic storm and all the fanfare, then nothing.

 

The best "surprise" probably would be PDII in 2003.  IIRC forecasts were pretty low until not long before the storm hit.  Calls were something like 4-8" conservative, and of course we ended up with 20" or so.  I don't remember exact times when forecasts corrected.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

I don't know the year and month, but I was young, so probably very early 90s. A pretty big storm was forecast but we had heavy rain most of the night. In the morning I woke up to high winds and dropping temperatures but all the precip was gone. Local mets said the storm and the cold air didn't time right. Guessing a missed phase?

 

A memorable bust was on MLK I think, we got a lot more snow than was forecast. If I remember correctly one of the local Mets (Stephen Cropper maybe?) came on the air with a brown paper bag over his head. lol The other good bust would be Feb 2010, local mets calling for 3-6 and the highest was a 6-12 call and we ended up with over 2 feet. There was even a point that we already had over 8 inches and they were still calling for 4-8.

[blackngoldrules]

There's one I remember from when I was a kid. It was early April 1987. I remember it unfortunately because my Grandfather had just passed away. They were calling for a lot of snow the night it started. I can still remember Joe Denardo with the snowfall map and talking about 9 to 18 inches around Pittsburgh. That night when it started, it was snowing really hard at first and I was excited. The next morning, I woke up thinking there would be a ton of snow on the ground. It was raining out. Nothing on the ground at all.

[Rick G]

Rick G. - who forecasted the 1-3"?

 

I remember reading some old Wright-Weather archives and seeing a call for 2-4" for AVP about a day before the 96 storm. Lolno.

I seem to think it was Mark Sowers.Wnep. I remember this because I had to get a battery for my wife that day.

[AlexP]

I was in college in December 1992 during the "downslope nor'easter" in Albany, NY. We were expecting 1-2 feet of snow, but the low stalled off the coast in just the right spot for downsloping winds from the Berkshiers to cut accumulations down to a few inches in the Hudson Valley. That was pretty frustrating.

[Burghblizz]

Feb 2010 was a giant bust for our locals. They held onto a 3-6 prediction on the evening news that evening when there was already 5 on the ground. We ended close to two feet.

 

Nah.....not exactly. Most of the locals had 8-12" by that point. The original forecasts were mostly 4"-8" but were upgraded. No one had 3" to 6" at 5:00 PM. The NWS had 8-14" with 16" lollies originally.

 

Now....to your point....it was the 11:00 news that astounded me. We were pushing a foot on the ground and all the 0Z models had us with an ADDITIONAL 12 to 15". I remember thinking that even if I backed out what had fallen since 7:00 PM, we still were in for another 8" to 10". Now I know models aren't always correct, but even with a socked in radar the 11:00 PM calls were mostly 12"-14" total. Never understood that.

 

 

Busts for me?

 

1) March 01 living in Harrisburg. 3.7" with a forecast of 2' Nothing will ever compare to that.

2) That stupid millennium storm a few months prior. Was supposed to get 6-10" and had sunny skies.

3) We had a storm around here in the winter of '95-'96. Not sure when, but we were supposed to get 8-14" had just wet roads in Oakland. But I think even the suburbs only had like 3". It was rough to get a 14" top number and literally have nothing on the ground (although it did snow, just temps were and issue)

 

 

Most of our busts in the last 8 or 10 years were storms that looked good a few days out and were "called off" in the last 24 hours. Not to jinx it, but it's been a while we had a lot forecasted and lost it mid storm. There might have been a few inverted trough disasters in the mid 2000's where warning criteria snows turned in to slop, but I think mostly we knew what was coming by the time the storms started.