Developing and Testing a New Seasonal Snowfall Forecasting Method
By Richard C. Alt II
Every winter, hundreds of people die needlessly in snowstorms, often unwarned and unable to comprehend the dangers they will face; at the same time, millions of dollars in government and private resources are lost when unforecasted storms suddenly develop or when anticipated major events fail to materialize. Seasonal snowfall forecasting algorithms with short and long term accuracy can eliminate or minimize each of these societal concerns . . . My experiment in seasonal snowfall forecasting aimed to combine three schools of meteorological thinking and break new ground in accurate long term winter forecasting. The experiment I have laid out was designed precisely so that it can be repeated at any location on earth with sufficient climate data. I consider my Intel project to be the ultimate expression of my lifelong passion for weather, beginning as early as my 6th birthday when the Blizzard of 1996 set new snowfall records across the East Coast.