When did you first notice that something was amiss? The accuracy of a seven-day forecast is now better than what a three-day forecast was when I started forecasting. And forecasting is supposed to get better, not worse.įor a seven- or 10-day forecast, the computer models are getting better and better and better and faster and faster and faster. But I feel that my forecasts for the last 10 years haven’t been as accurate as the previous 10 years. So your long-range winter forecasts used to be more accurate? How can I look back to 1970 as a comparison when I can’t even look back to 1990 anymore? We are living in a totally different world. Philadelphia’s winter is now almost five degrees warmer than it was in 1970, so it’s not the same climate anymore. Well, I would say that climate change has ruined it. And it’s not just my conclusion, but the conclusion of many other forecasters, that climate change has affected this. We would find years that were somewhat similar, and we’d look back and see what happened in those years and use that to develop the seasonal forecast.īut what’s happened in more recent years is that this method hasn’t been working as well. What we would do is look back in the past at similar patterns in the oceans and atmosphere all over the world. Over the years, I’ve developed and tried to improve other techniques of seasonal forecasting. There was an extreme weather pattern setting up for the season, and it was a pretty easy forecast. I’ve always said that if it ever got to the point where I didn’t feel the confidence to be able to do it with skill, then I would ask: W hy are we doing it? We used to do them with skill. There’s no reason to do them at this point other than public demand. I have determined these forecasts to have marginal what we call “skill.” Skill is anything better than flipping a coin. First, with all of the death and destruction and the political turmoil and insanity that’s been going on recently, it just seems much less important to take up time with these seasonal forecasts. I’ve been waiting like a kid sitting beside the tree on Christmas morning for you to release your long-range Philadelphia winter weather forecast. So I called him at home to find out what the holdup is. Well, after Tynan released her latest Philadelphia long-range winter forecast in mid-November, I waited and waited for Schwartz to do the same so I could compare them, as I have in the past. And what did we get? Are you ready for this? Three tenths of an inch. Case in point: In 2019, Tynan said we could get anywhere from 18 to 24 inches of snow, while Schwartz predicted as much as 35 inches. And though these Philadelphia winter forecasts are great for ratings, they’re frequently very, very wrong. They purport to tell us how much snow we’ll get in December, January, February and March - as many as four months from the date of their predictions. Hurricane Schwartz during his 2019 Philadelphia long-range winter weather forecast, which he says was his last (Screenshot via NBC 10)Įvery November, 6 ABC’s Cecily Tynan and NBC 10’s Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz come out with their long-range Philadelphia winter weather forecasts.
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