Performance of NMC in Forecasting a Record-Breaking Winter Storm, 6-7 February 1978

Abstract

An intense winter storm deepened rapidly to maturity off the Mid-Atlantic coast and brought record amounts of snow to southeastern New England. The development, which was not the typical development of a Cape Hatteras storm into a ?northeaster,? was predicted 3½ days in advance by the National Meteorological Center's seven-layer primitive equation (7LPE) model. The NMC's limited area fine mesh (LFM) model consistently forecast details of the cyclogenesis 24 h ahead. The success of the models in forecasting the cyclogenegis resulted in excellent forecasts of precipitation amounts and heavy snow. The total performance of NMC was probably the very best possible with the current models.