No problem venting pwolfy2003. I got to vent about some knuckleheads that called me out on stuff I was either not wrong about or had even been wrong yet.
I think there is some very good advice given though and that is to not put too much faith in having reliable snow up this way in December. It happens some years and in other not. There are quite a few smaller businesses up here that do not even open their doors until the day after Christmas because the snow and winter tourism is so iffy and slow until then.
This will by my 13th year living up here and most have seen enough snow to ride by the 2nd or 3rd week of Dec, but it can be hit and miss.
As for the predictions. I understand that the storm being off by 150 miles can seem like a big deal, but the map below illustrates the general area that we need to consider for the weather conditions for the Midwest.
Most folks think that what happens in a specific area is controlled by the conditions in that specific area. Quite the opposite actually. Events in places like Alaska can have an impact on what happens in the southern Midwest or even the SE US. So a forecast for the Midwest can hinge on event happening anywhere within that map area and sometimes even further outside those parameters.
Look at that map and then look at the difference between where the storm hit and where it was forecasted to hit and that 150 miles becomes very small (at least in my opinion!). As for the lake effect, it is falling, but not at the pace once thought. The track of Sunday's low greatly reduced the LES we were to get yesterday. The clipper system for later today through tomorrow is going to pass about 100 miles further north than initially thought. That is making a big difference in the snow amounts, with the 2-5" of system snow to fall from the north shore of Superior north, rather than over the Northwoods and the further north track of that clipper also lowers the LES considerably.
I am not trying to cop out of the blown forecast. They happen and no one is more upset about them than me when they to, believe me! I am just trying to lend some perspective as to what I deal with as far as forecasting that might help you better understand what I am up against when I do a forecast to help make a little more sense of why a forecast does not pan out as predicted.
-John
-Mezz