Hutzell: How a tornado prediction turned into a ‘fumble’ for forecasters

The Tuesday apologies were as wild as the Monday forecasts.

Wind. Lightning. Snow. Major tornadoes. Button up and head for cover!

And then ... meh.

“What a HORRIBLE forecast by meteorologists — especially myself,” Matthew Cappucci of MyRadar said.

Mark Peña at WJLA in D.C. blamed “sciencey parameters and mumbo jumbo” that didn’t pan out the way he thought they would.

Dylan Robichaud at Baltimore’s WMAR might have said it best when he joined the storm of social media mea culpas.

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Feb 9, 2026

“We screwed up big time.”

Spring arrives at 10:46 a.m. Friday, if you define the vernal equinox as the first day. Or, you can subscribe to the meteorological preference for three-month seasons and consider that it already started back on March 1.

You could just as easily say it begins when the ospreys return to the Chesapeake Bay, or when the call of spring peepers echoes from the still-wet woods.

It’s a difficult season to be a forecaster. The atmosphere pushes and pulls. Odd things happen.

It’s known as a season of change, and figuring out tomorrow’s weather is changing along with it.

There always have been forecasters who love the hype and others who focus on the science.

Now, there’s the weather influencer to consider, too — enthusiasts hoping for your attention online even if they’re not experts.

Whoever you follow, should you get mad when the forecaster gets it wrong?

“Good morning, people. Happy St. Patty’s Day,” influencer Kianna Wilson of Baltimore posted Tuesday. “Yesterday? Yesterday was something else. But we’re not going to worry about that right now.”

March is the month of unexpected sunburn and the surprise snowstorm, of wind yowling through bare trees one day and a sparkling afternoon on the patio with friends the next.

Arctic air recedes as warmth from the Gulf of Mexico rises. Longer hours of sunlight mean warmer days, while the thermometer swings back down at night.

The winter jet stream, that river of cold air rushing west to east thousands of feet above us, weakens and strengthens and then weakens again. A planet warming because of human factors tosses in an extra dash of chaos.

Even with all that, Monday’s forecast was a pretty big whiff. I can’t remember a similar wave of apologies.

“This was a major forecast bust,” Robichaud said in a video posted to TikTok. “This was probably the biggest fumble of my career.”

Hundreds of flights were canceled at BWI Thurgood Marshall, Reagan National and Dulles airports. Schools let out early. Offices were closed. Gov. Wes Moore issued a state of preparedness.

“We made a horrible forecast,” Cappucci said in a video posted Monday night. “Not only did we communicate it poorly, but we forecast it poorly.”

Meteorologists were focused over the weekend on a rare 4-out-of-5 risk-level warning from the U.S. Storm Prediction Center.

They saw damage from the system farther west. As Monday arrived, they looked outside and were convinced by the rushing shelf of clouds that tornadoes were a real danger.

Cappucci, a contributor to The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, posted an “off-ramp” forecast for the storm Monday afternoon, but by then, public expectations had been set.

“It’s very frustrating that we produced a forecast that wound up falling flat to this extent,” he said. “Ten million people were notified of something that didn’t really wind up happening.”

Here’s the sciencey mumbo-jumbo.

Rain and clouds kept the sun from heating the lower atmosphere as expected, and heat is the fuel of storms. Heavy rainstorms to the south sucked up a lot of the atmospheric energy, and low pressure west of the Appalachians pulled in cool air from the north.

There just wasn’t enough juice left to drive the storm into the jet stream, the circumstance that can create cyclonic winds and spawn tornadoes.

Mostly. The National Weather Service confirmed an EF1 tornado touched down with 100 mph winds after the storm crossed the Chesapeake Bay, damaging the tiny Eastern Shore town of Ridgely. There was also an EF0 twister with 80 mph winds in Carroll County.

Bad. But not what we were told was coming.

Lots of forecasters posted non-apologies, opting for a better-safe-than-sorry explanation. Wild weather can kill, absolutely.

“Was it a bust or not? I’m talking about the forecast on Monday,” said Amelia Draper, a meteorologist with WRC in D.C., in a video Tuesday afternoon. “The answer? It lies somewhere in the middle. We did have a lot of damage.”

It’s been years since anyone waited for the 6 o’clock news to get the forecast. Phone, watch and alarm clock apps tell you when to bring an umbrella.

Shifting to social media was inevitable.

Justin Berk was among the first. He left television in 2012 and is among the most active regional private meteorologists posting the weather.

TV weather personalities have social media accounts, too. Some stand out with behind-the-scenes peeks and personal revelations.

They compete for your attention with enthusiasts like Foot’s Forecast and NorCast Weather. Their track record isn’t clear, but tens of thousands of people trust them.

Sometimes what they post is about the forecast. Sometimes, for an influencer like Wilson, who works at WBAL but posts about weather outside of her job, it’s about being like the rest of us.

“I don’t really know what the temperature is,” Wilson posted Wednesday. “It’s just cold and dry. Does that make sense?”

It can be hard to know who’s right. It’s a good sign when the forecaster you trust explains what went wrong.

“People in general aren’t very savvy in shopping for information,” Cappucci said.

It’s spring in Maryland and the weather is always changing.

So is the forecast.