Summer 2018

[NW Crow]

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/predictions/90day/

Warmer than normal. Dry start of winter, then turning toward average precipitation.

[BendLocal]

Long range forecast are fun to look at but they aren't very reliable.

https://snowbrains.com/noaas-useless...r-outlook-usa/

Don’t get me wrong, NOAA is great. Really great. But their long term winter forecasting hasn’t been impressive the past 5 years. Nobody’s has. But that doesn’t stop all of us from getting excited about seeing a winter forecast in July and it never will.

[NW Crow]

Yes, NOAA is not very reliable, largely because the weather isn't. But the headline "most useless" forecast is a little extreme. The NOAA article mentioned within this article says they were way better than random guess on temperature and slightly better than random on precipitation. Did anyone do better? Until I find them, I'll look at NOAA, knowing it is a guess but one of the most researched and probably one of the better ones.


At minimum, if you are interested in the topic, it is better to know how to get to NOAA's long range forecast than not.

[Thom52]

yesterday..... dry and dusty in Bend, raining in the mountains just a few miles away. In fact a few rain drops occasionally being blown our way.
The Bend weather pattern definitely complicates any predictions applying to Bend itself.
I am finally figuring out that my home weather station predicting rain might just be picking up the weather over the crest, just a few miles away, but we will be sunny and just watching the ominous "Wall-o-weather" looming to the West.


tr1090361RainInTheMountains by Thom I, on Flickr

[BendLocal]

As the crow flies Bend is roughly 20 miles from the mountains. There are micro-climates along the way and all around us. Makes forecasting with accuracy a major challenge and long range forecasting nearly impossible.