Meteorologists apologize for busted forecast

While meteorologists had been calling for the Philadelphia area to get slammed with a foot or more of snow, most of the region has ended up getting just an inch or two.

The storm shifted east overnight, dumping much less snow than expected on the area. As it became clear earlier forecasts had drastically overstated the amount of snow headed to Philadelphia, some meteorologists took to social media to apologize for the massive snow predictions.

Shortly before 1 a.m., Gary Szatkowski of the National Weather Service's Mount Holly office posted on Twitter:

Around the same time, his office posted a new forecast and snowfall graphic showing, as Szatkowski described on Twitter, "sharply curtailed" snowfall amounts of two to four inches for the bulk of the Philadelphia area.

Szatkowski wasn't the only meteorologist to acknowledge forecasting errors. Press of Atlantic City meteorologist Dan Skeldon said:

And 6ABC's Cecily Tynan, who suffered a knee injury while skiing over the weekend, tweeted about her especially rough day:

A number of Philadelphia officials on Tuesday morning defended the meteorologists.

Mayor Michael Nutter read Szatkowski's tweets about the forecast miss at a news conference, but said "the National Weather Service has been right on the money" for nearly all other recent storms.

When the forecasts do get it wrong, "it plays out on a very large stage," Nutter said.

Lou Giorla, the city's prisons commissioner, was among those who said it was better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.

As public officials and forecasters noted, predicting the weather can be a messy science.

The forecasting site Phillywx.com posted a detailed message on its Facebook page about the uncertainty surrounding "this pig of a forecast," concluding: "Nature laughs last, laughs the most, and laughs the loudest as the weak human attempt to forecast."