Sunday's Vermont Post-Mortem: Overall Forecast Was Accurate. But A Bit Of An Over-Performer

Snowfall forecast issued Saturday afternoon, more than
eight hours before the snowstorm began. 

I know all eyes are on the very nasty storm due here in Vermont tonight, but I also like to assess how outfits like the National Weather Service did in forecasting the last storm. 

As we drew closer and closer to the storm, the predicted snowfall totals kept rising as well. 

By the time we got to the night before the storm, it looks like forecasters had a great handle on where the most snow would fall. The only inaccuracy worth noting is that some areas got more snow than forecast.

The first map on this page is what the National Weather Service was forecasting on the afternoon of January 6. This is a good eight hours or more before the storm arrived.

As you can see, the southeastern half of Vermont was due for the most snow, while the far north would get the least. Also note the narrow zone of lighter expected snowfall going along extreme western Vermont near the border with New York. 

Actual snowfall on Sunday. It over-performed in 
several parts of Vermont, especially in 
and near Orange County in eastern Vermont. 

The second map on this page shows what actually happened with the storm.  

The biggest surprise was the heavier than expected snow in northeastern Vermont. 

Instead of the Northeast Kingdom missing out on the snow, the area of lighter snow ended up getting displaced eastward into northern New Hampshire. 

Orange County, Vermont, south of St. Johnsbury, was the unexpected winner with this storm. 

The forecast or that area called for six, seven or eight inches of snow, generally speaking. Instead, most of that county got over a foot. There was a report of 22 inches from Groton.  

The forecasted zone of lighter snow in far western Vermont materialized. But even so, northwestern Vermont got a little more snow than forecast. 

Bottom line, the storm was more or less an over-performer.  I'd give forecast accuracy a grade of B.

That's actually very good, as Vermont snowstorms are notoriously hard to forecast. Usually, even the best meteorologists don't usually do as well as they did with Sunday's storm.