IEM Daily Feature
Friday, 15 June 2012

Rainfall forecasting

Posted: 15 Jun 2012 05:35 AM

The featured chart presents a forecast model's prediction of 3 hourly precipitation accumulations for a grid cell over Des Moines. Each row represents a sequential model run and forecast out for eight days. The white cells represent a time period outside the bounds of the forecast temporal domain and pink cells represent a dry forecast. The columns represent the change in the forecast over time and you can see a lot of variability with the amount predicted. Some of the forecast runs dumped considerable rainfall today and into this weekend, while others are on the dry side. This model variability makes life fun for weather forecasters. What will actually happen?

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Tags:   model