Monday, June 20, 2005
The week ahead: high and dry
Jason Samenow @ 12:00 AM
After a beautiful weekend, we will be spoiled by comfortable temperatures and low humidity for one more day. Then we'll have pretty characteristic late June weather during the middle of the week, followed by a return of heat and humidity towards the weekend. Here are the daily details:After some areas of patch fog early today, expect partly cloudy skies and pleasant temeratures, with highs 75-79.
Abundant sunshine is in the cards for Tuesday, with warm temperatures between 81-85.
By Wednesday, a weak cold front will move through the region late. This may provide the best chance of rain for the week -- but the probability, at 20%, is not at all high. Temperatures should range from 82-86.
Thursday looks great, with partly sunny skies and temperatures 81-85.
On Friday, the heat and humidity begin to creep in, with temperatures 85-89.
Right now, next weekend looks warm and humid (but maybe not as humid as early last week), with temperatures around 90.
The average high for this time of year is 85-86, and the average low is 66-67.
With little rain expected this week, we'll likely be starting to run up a precipitation deficit, which could become an issue if the dry pattern persists.
Last week's "Week Ahead" forecasting evaluation
I'm going to start reporting on the accuracy of the forecast highs in "week ahead" posts published on Mondays. The table that follows documents high temperatures forecasted for each day last week (on Monday, 6/13) and the verification.
| Day | Forecast | Actual |
| Monday | 89 | 91 |
| Tuesday | 90 | 92 |
| Wednesday | 87 | 88 |
| Thursday | 78 | 84 |
| Friday | 75 | 77 |
| Saturday | 81 | 81 |
| Sunday | 84 | 79 |
If you average out the daily forecast error, I was off by an average of 2.5 degrees per forecast. That's not bad. If I had to devise a grading scale for this, I would say:
Within 2.0 degrees/per forecast = A
Within 2.0-3.0 degrees/per forecast = B
Within 3.0-4.0 degrees/per forecast = C
Within 4.0-5.0 degrees/per forecast = D
Not within 5 degrees/forecast = F
So last week's effort earns a solid "B."
In future weeks, I'll have some fun with this and grade forecasts from some of the media outlets, AccuWeather, Weather.com and the National Weather Service for comparison. I may also think about some objective way for evaluating precipitation. For now though, it's high temperatures only.
Comments are closed for this archived entry | Link | 
Email this post
Email this post
