03/17/2026
EF1 tornado confirmed in Ridgely, MD from last night's final line of storms. Though most of the day was uneventful compared to the forecast, the line of storms that went through the area between 9-11pm packed a bit of a punch!
What went wrong with yesterday's forecast? Well, what I had described as a potential fail mode happened. A mess of convection throughout the morning, along with heavy cloud cover throughout the day, really limited any potential instability, or fuel, for big time storms with strong tornadoes. The wind threat did end up verifying with the final line of storms, with some areas being hit with up to 90mph gusts potentially. The tornado threat just didn't materialize, though we did have at least one confirmed tornado.
No meteorologist likes getting a forecast wrong, but if you do get one wrong, you hope that it goes the way yesterday did. Over forecasting is not good, it can erode trust from the public. Yesterday's forecast was a failure, in my eyes, from the NWS. The event was over forecasted and caused schools and businesses to close when it wasn't necessary. But again, you'd rather people change their day and end up with nothing, than under forecast and have people die, get injured, or lose property where they could have otherwise been prepared.
Forecasting the weather is literally predicting the future. It's a complicated science that clearly we don't have all the answers for. With this page I don't really do forecasting, I relay information from the National Weather Service and try to explain it. But either way, I'm sorry that this event was over forecasted and that people were potentially scared and made changes to plans for the day. We always hope days like yesterday are learning experiences.
