National Grid Blames Weather forecast for Power Delays

National Grid has been publicly criticized for its slow response in returning power to the nearly 500,000 people who lost it during the Nor'Easter two weeks ago.  I was defending the company; October storms like that are rarely seen.  I think the state is wasting money, time, and resources investigating what happened.  They will probably find that the crews worked as hard and as fast as they could to restore power but the damage was too extensive for everyone to have their power back right away.  That's okay, we are an impatient society that wants everything done for us RIGHT NOW!  What's not okay is blaming the weather forecast for the slow response.  Here is the story from WBZ.

Some highlights...
National Grid executives now say the forecast was “fundamentally missed by meteorologists”, who “really underestimated the moisture” and “missed on the weight of the snow.”


Now I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but here is my forecast from the Thursday before the storm.  Here is my forecast the day before the storm.  I had been telling others about this event two weeks in advance (ask my Dad if you know him/see him).  National Grid MUST have a company meteorologist who does long range forecasting for them.  If they do not, then shame on them (I'm looking for a job).  But that is besides the point, look at what the National Weather Service in Taunton said 36 hours before the storm...

THIS IS SHAPING UP TO BE AN EXTREMELY ANOMALOUS EVENT FOR LATE
OCTOBER.  THE MAIN CONCERN WILL NOT BE EXACT SNOWFALL AMOUNTS...BUT
THE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT TREE DAMAGE/POWER OUTAGES.

A bigger question is why we need to blame everyone for everything.  Sometimes s&@! happens.  As meteorologists we get things wrong sometimes everyone knows that and everyone loves to point that out.  However, this was not one of those times.  We were on the ball with this forecast from start to finish.  National Grid would have had more sympathy with the public if they had simply said "Sorry, it was a historic storm."  Now they look like fools.