April 19, 2023
For this post I'm taking a look at the last four severe weather events in the Southeast. I usually try to do this for the previous forecast each time I post a new forecast, but I have gotten behind a bit.
March 31 - April 1st
Thankfully most of the bad weather for the 31st was out of our area. The Moderate risk area was expanded and then a High risk area was added later in the day (not shown). For the 1st southern Alabama and most of the Florida Panhandle was in a Slight or Marginal risk area as the storm system moved east. Originally the Day 2 Outlook for the 1st just had a Marginal risk but it was upgraded the day of. The forecast for the 31st was excellent I think. For the 1st I would have expected maybe one to two tornadoes and a few more wind reports but otherwise it was pretty good.
April 3rd
There's not much to say about the forecast for April 3rd. I would expect a few wind reports in the Marginal region but otherwise it was very good.
April 12 & 13
I thought the forecasts for the 12th and 13th verified well also. There was a 5% tornado risk on the 13th so I would have expected one or two tornado reports and maybe a few more wind reports. One thing that didn't materialize like I thought was the rainfall. It looked like we'd see an extended area of 1"+ rain totals near the coast but that didn't happen.
April 15 & 16
The forecast for the 15th was spot on. It is really neat how it captures that narrow band along the Florida Panhandle. There was a low tornado risk (2%) and we didn't see any of those but that doesn't take away from what was otherwise a great forecast in a complex environment with a good bit of uncertainty. The Day 2 Outlook for the 16th originally had most of the Florida Panhandle and southeast Alabama in a Marginal risk area (for damaging winds only, not shown). This was dropped on the morning of which verified well.
That's it for this recap of the last four events. While these aren't my forecasts it is a good practice in forecasting to take a look at how things actually turned out. Sometimes my thoughts may be a bit unfair as I'm just looking at a graphic and making qualitative judgements without really digging into the "why" of what happened and pairing that with the stated uncertainty at the time the forecasts were made. Also, not having a tornado report in an area that only had a 2% risk and was relatively small is not a bust by any means yet sometimes I'll state that I would have expected to see one or two. That is just my point of view and not a good representation of the actual forecast skill. I also look to see how well distributed the reports are across the risk area. Again, seeing reports that don't cover the whole area isn't necessarily a bust as often there are intricacies of timing and environment that cause things to work out as they do.
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