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Forecasters are shocked by how long they've seen winter storm Jonas coming

When a storm is coming meteorologists usually balance the results of many different computer models to create their forecasts.

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But this wasn't necessary for the blizzard about to hit the East Coast, which people are calling Winter Storm Jonas.

Computer models all over the world – some of which run as many as many as 700 trillion calculations per second – are consistently turning up highly similar predictions of Jonas' course.

jonassatellite
NASA

And, surprisingly, all of these models have been in agreement for several days, according to Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather service.

"I don't remember seeing this many modeling systems have this much consistency seven, six, five, four days in advance," Uccellini said at a Thursday afternoon press conference.

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That agreement is a result of several factors, he said.

First, the federal government has improved its forecasting and modelling infrastructure significantly in recent years by adding computing power. The new, smarter models are more reliable.

Second, this storm is resulting from an unusual convergence of classic blizzard building blocks. Just about every factor you would expect to create a big storm has shown up on the weather maps, so models have a high confidence about what the effect will be. However, Uccellini cautioned, if even one factor changes that could alter the storm's intensity or path.

"I would suggest that people pay attention to this system," he said.

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These models are saying that Washington D.C. and Virginia should get hurt the worst, seeing well over a foot of snow. North Carolina and Kentucky can expect ice, while New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania should get high winds, a decent storm surge, and around a foot of snow.

Least clear is New York City's fate. A few miles one way or the other will mean the difference between a foot of snow and just a few inches in the city itself.

So the big way this storm is unusual isn't how strong or big it is or how much snow it's going to leave in it's wake, but how long we've been able to see it coming.

Uccellini said this modern confidence in long-term forecasts should save lives. He referred to a blizzard in 1988 that killed 500 people in New York City, and earlier disasters where even more people were affected.

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Because of these improvements in modeling and forecasting, we now have so much advance notice about these types of storms that, FEMA, local governments, and individuals have much more time to prepare. As long as they do there should be much less damage and danger from these storms.

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