What's the best method to use for snowfall verification?

[weatherwiz]

One thing I would really like to start doing this winter is sort of keep track on how well I do with forecasts of winter events...I always seem to try and make maps but I never really take the time at the end of the event to go back and look to see where I did well and where I didn't do so well. Often times I usually gauge it on what happens IMBY...I know that is very dumb but that's what I usually do.

If I want to improve my forecasting skills and become better at it I feel it is very important to go back and review past forecasts as this can be a great guide to see where improvements can be made and where your strengths are.

What I tried doing tonight is I gathered all snowfall totals from LSR's for all of CT/MA/RI as those are the states my forecasts focused on. What I did was gather snowfall reports for CT, which there were a total of 43. What I then did was use a map of CT with cities in paint and highlighted the city based on how much snowfall they received....To make this easier I'll just attach what I did at the bottom.

I then looked back at my forecast map and determined where the cities were within my map. I was within my forecast range in 15 of the 43 cities that received reports which works out to be about a 35% success rate

I kind of feel though this is a poor judgement b/c there are so many more cities but there was no information received on snowfall totals.

So my question is, when going back to review what do you set your basis off of?

[djr5001]

These links may help if you are not already using them or may be helpful to others -- I know there are other good links too if anyone else has any to add

http://water.weather.gov/precip/

http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/interactive/html/map.html (Under 'Select Physical Element' you can pick 24/48/72 hour total snowfall)

http://mesowest.utah.edu/index.html

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/index.php

http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/cgibin/water/drought/wdr.pl

It is hard when there are areas with no reports of data, or only report available is from mid-storm and nothing post storm. One thing you could do is use observed data along with radar precip total estimates to get an idea of what totals may be in your areas missing actual reports. Maybe when you highlight the cities/areas, use a lighter shade of the color for your snow ranges so you can tell which areas you have actual reports for and which are estimated.

[weatherwiz]

Thanks for the links and for the tips

[NECT]

You can put a <6" in Woodstock. It's bordering MA, and the 2nd town from RI. No snow for me.(said with the soup nazi accent).

[shadow]

One thing I would really like to start doing this winter is sort of keep track on how well I do with forecasts of winter events...I always seem to try and make maps but I never really take the time at the end of the event to go back and look to see where I did well and where I didn't do so well. Often times I usually gauge it on what happens IMBY...I know that is very dumb but that's what I usually do.

If I want to improve my forecasting skills and become better at it I feel it is very important to go back and review past forecasts as this can be a great guide to see where improvements can be made and where your strengths are.

What I tried doing tonight is I gathered all snowfall totals from LSR's for all of CT/MA/RI as those are the states my forecasts focused on. What I did was gather snowfall reports for CT, which there were a total of 43. What I then did was use a map of CT with cities in paint and highlighted the city based on how much snowfall they received....To make this easier I'll just attach what I did at the bottom.

I then looked back at my forecast map and determined where the cities were within my map. I was within my forecast range in 15 of the 43 cities that received reports which works out to be about a 35% success rate

I kind of feel though this is a poor judgement b/c there are so many more cities but there was no information received on snowfall totals.

So my question is, when going back to review what do you set your basis off of?

put 15 inches in north middletown cromwell line

[ono]

impossible to tell. north madison/durham, ct line @ elevation 600ft it blew hard as hell. neighbors had some siding/flashing damage from wind (we're pretty exposed up here, highest point in town maybe). with so much drifting considered, 10-12" here is my observation.