By Tracy Fugere
Fargo, ND – In the 23 years that Leon Osbourne has been in North Dakota, he says this is probably the largest storm with the most snowfall covering such a wide area that he has seen.
Osbourne is a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at UND and he works with the Regional Weather Center. He discussed Tuesday's record-setting storm in Grand Forks on North Dakota Public Radio's "Hear It Now" program.
Osbourne says from an education standpoint, this is one of the best opportunities he has to teach.
"Because it stays with the students much longer because they are actually seeing it unfold before their eyes and we can ask them questions immediately as things are occuring. 'What do you think is going to happen next?' 'Why did a particular situation actually occur?' 'Can you forecast it?' It's one of those situations where every dark cloud has it's silver lining, and that's our silver lining."
Osbourne says people have been calling the weather center, asking why they didn't know about this storm earlier. He says the center is learning a lot from this storm and weather forecasting is not an exact science.
"It should not have been a surprised that there was a storm. Where the surprise is, is the magnitude of the snowfall. I think that's what probably caught most people off guard including the forecasting community. And we have to now respond to that and see if we can make advancements where this doesn't occur next time."
Osbourne says this storm system most likely will have an effect on the river and lake levels in the Red River Valley next spring.