Friday, August 17, 2012

A distant peek at convention weather

The weather will play a role in this year's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, with many of the events scheduled outdoors.

And we're getting the first peek at what conditions might be like for the beginning of convention activities.

Of course, convention sponsors are hoping for ideal conditions -- dry weather and temperatures in the 80s during the day.  And I'm sure Republicans in the crowd would love nothing more than several days of downpours.

I won't get into the politics of weather.  Let's just look at the forecast.

The Climate Prediction Center, a government agency operated by NOAA, has an 8-14 day forecast that calls for wetter-than-average weather and temperatures near normal.  The problem is that convention activities don't start for another 15 or 16 days, so it'll be early next week before we can use the CPC's predictions.

That leaves us with a private company, Accu-Weather.  It provides 15-day forecasts, and those take us into the start of the Labor Day weekend. The forecast into that Friday and Saturday is for wet, wet weather.

As we all know, forecasts beyond three days are an adventure, and the adventure quotient increases as the forecast gets longer.

We'll take another look at the convention forecast early next week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any forecast more than 5 days out is meaningless. Accu-Weather looking ahead 15 days is ludicrous.

Anonymous said...

Unlike most Republicans, I am not praying for monsoons the week of the DNC. As a city, we're going to look bad enough, what with 95% of the citizens staying home to avoid the Secret Service body cavity searches at every intersection. I hope they all enjoy themselves, come away with a favorable view of our city, and then get swept out on 11/6. I just want the summer to end, regardless of which political party is in town. I'm ready to be done with the 200% humidity we have had since Memorial Day.