2-16-2023 Through 3-3-2023 Severe Weather Debrief

March 10, 2023

I am behind debriefing three forecasts and instead of cluttering up the next severe weather post I'm going to debrief them here and provide the link.

First up is 2/16/2023 (original post here). My analysis of these events is not scientific, I do not dig into how the actual dynamic and thermodynamic environment evolved compared to the forecast, I'm really just looking at the storm reports compared to the morning forecast which is displayed nicely in the verification graphics. There is almost always a degree of uncertainty which isn't communicated in the outlook graphics but which can be gleaned by reading the forecast discussions. So for a forecast like shown below a moderate (red) forecast may be warranted by some things the forecasters are looking at but due to uncertainty an enhanced risk is what they go with (just an example, not the case in this forecast). Likewise the forecast may hinge on one or more ingredients in the atmosphere that have to be present in the right amount at the right time and if not then storms may not be as severe as they might have been. Often just a few hours difference in timing or a weather feature being a few hundred miles in the wrong place makes a big impact on the actual weather.

getting back to 2/16, I would have expected more coverage of severe reports especially in the enhanced region. Most of the tornado reports occurred in the highest probably area (not shown) which was good but wind damage reports were expected to be more widespread.

Next we'll look at 3/1/2023 (original post here). I think this forecast verified well enough but most of the tornado and damaging wind reports were isolated to a fairly small area or scattered respectively. The 5% tornado and 15% damaging wind risk areas stretched well back to the west in the slight risk area and you can see the few tornados that were reported were in the east part of the area and the damaging wind reports were mostly scattered with a cluster in the east.

The last event I need to catch up on is for 3/2/2023 through 3/3/2023 (original post here). Looking at the verification for the forecast issued the morning of the 2nd you can see that the forecast verified quite well in the core threat area. I think the lack of reports in the eastern part of the risk area was mainly due to the storm system not moving to the east as quickly as originally thought as you can see when you compare the two days. It is also interesting that very few tornadoes formed across Mississippi and middle Tennessee where there were 10% tornado risk areas (not shown). The slower moving system also messed up the part of my forecast where I stated that the weather would be out of our area by noon at the latest when in fact it didn't clear until the evening.

That's it for this post. I like to always take a look at how these forecasts worked out and provide that for those that are interested. It looks like severe weather is possible on Sunday the 12th so keep an eye out for a post on that.