Good thing we never really destabilized
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Severe Severe Threat March 15-16 2026
- Thread starter SD
- Start date
Good thing we never really destabilized
NorthHillsWx
Member
I am one of those parents, and since January this is the third Monday our kids have had off. On top of the snow days (5 total) this has been over a full work week of days with the kids at home. Both my wife and I work jobs that require us to be in meetings or on calls through the day and these cancellations absolutely wreck our work day. It puts immense pressure on working parents and though I get the abundance of caution, of the 6 weather days we’ve had this year there have really only been 2 that were justified in the actual outcome. At least snow days you can prep for, today caught us totally off guard. I don’t blame the schools but this is a total miss by meteorologists
My school would actually take and teach about severe weather and storms on days like today to preach the importance of understanding what to look out for, watch vs warning, etc. Heck, it's why I love weather now.
BrickTamland
Member
I graduated high school in 92. I remember getting dismissed early at least once in high school because of the threat of severe weather.
NorthHillsWx
Member
We had several early dismissals I can remember but since this was progged to come through around noon that wasn’t an option. Once again, I don’t blame schools, level 4 events are rare and should be respected, but that puts much more scrutiny on forecasters when they call for an event like this and it doesn’t pan out. Level 4/5 days are reserved for exceptional events and even some of the “busts” still produced significant severe weather. This legitimately produced almost nothing in the entire RAH warning area
JHS
Member
Storm Prediction Center Today's Storm Reports
Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.
www.spc.noaa.gov
This says a LOT here.
I have so many questions about this event I don't know where to even begin. Just had a big severe warned complex roll through and while the rain was heavy, there wasn't so much as a gust of wind and I counted one rumble of thunder. Heaviest returns right over us too. In fact, there hasn't been anything resembling more than a light breeze all day. ILM was discussing possible wind advisories 24 hours ago.
It's been a recurring theme going back easily 5 years now. Heavy radar returns but ground truth not verifying. Is it possible the radars aren't calibrated properly? It certainly SEEMS like something changed around that 2020-2021 period but I don't have any evidence beyond what I've seen with my own eyes. It's not just in my neck of the woods either. This has happened all over NC and SC and probably beyond.
It's been a recurring theme going back easily 5 years now. Heavy radar returns but ground truth not verifying. Is it possible the radars aren't calibrated properly? It certainly SEEMS like something changed around that 2020-2021 period but I don't have any evidence beyond what I've seen with my own eyes. It's not just in my neck of the woods either. This has happened all over NC and SC and probably beyond.
NorthHillsWx
Member
This makes forecasting discussions even more interesting for me. These busts showing that they can still occur despite great advancements must be humbling to the great met. profession.
I graduated way back in 1983 and I was only dismissed once because of severe weather. It was in April of 1975 and Wake County had multiple tornado warnings that day so classes were dismissed at 1:00 PM if I remember correctly.
What did the Google model show? Is AI useful in these mesoscale situations?
Tsappfrog20
Member
So I’m not a parent or married for that matter but I don’t think it was a bad decision in closing school! I don’t think any parent should have been caught off guard with this decision because the forecast never really changed until late last night after the decisions had already been made! Did it end up being a bust YES DEFINITELY WAS but that in our case was a good thing and I’m grateful that decisions were made with the forecast that were available to them at the time
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I graduated in 2010 and I never remember it happening. Granted, I mostly lived in the Triad which gets somewhat less severe weather than the Triangle, on average. We may have gotten an early dismissal around Hurricane Isabel (which was elementary school for me, I think), although I might be making that up.
Of course, maybe it happened once, I'm not 100% sure. Regardless, an early dismissal is very different than just canceling the entire school day. I've noticed that is one thing you hardly ever see nowadays. Two-hour delays, early dismissals, etc. When I was in school, we got a lot of two-hour delays and some early dismissals; now, those seem to largely be a thing of the past for some reason. They just close.
ryanardo
Member
Another big forecast bust by the SPC, as a Trump supporter, not bringing politics into but am, he has defunded NOAA, models are horrible and didnt pick up on it until midnight last night but no change was made to the forecast and SPC outlooks, they should have changed the outlook and looked like a fool instead of canceling schools for a rain storm
BrickTamland
Member
We almost always need some sun here to provide the spark for severe storms. Is it difficult to tell how long the rain and clouds will stick around and limit instability? I thought that was pretty basic forecasting. Maybe the local mets feel they have to go with whatever the SPC says instead of disagreeing with them in cases like this.