Forecast of the Day • A National Weather Forecasting Contest

Wednesday provides another case where the two main U.S. models differ in the position of a frontal boundary, leading to 15+ F differences in the maximum temperature for some sites. The GFS MOS predicts a Tmax for Springfield, Illinois at 60 F or above because it predicts a warm frontal passage. But the NAM MOS is in the lower 40's, because it keeps Springfield just to the north of the warm sector air. Let's predict Tmax and see which model performs better for this case.

Question: Fronts often cause forecast errors because of the difficulty in timing their arrivals. But how is the situation in Springfield a little different?