OpenSnow’s Bryan Allegretto is unique when it comes to forecasting — he is the only forecaster who predicts snowstorms solely for skiers in the Tahoe Basin. Allegretto, now in his ninth season in Tahoe, studied meteorology at Penn State, but is mostly self-taught when it comes to forecasting. Allegretto developed a name for himself with his previous forecasting site, Tahoe Weather Discussion, which he ran from 2007 to 2012. After his friend Joel Gratz started the national site OpenSnow in 2011, Allegretto combined forces with him the following year, and is now the forecaster for the Tahoe region, one of 10 regions that are part of OpenSnow. While Allegretto does his best to accurately predict storms, the many variables in Tahoe that help push storms up and over the mountains — wind, jet streams, cold air, moisture and the way the mountains interact with the clouds, just to name a few — can make predicting the weather as hard as looking into a crystal ball. “If I miss a storm, I get bummed at night,” Allegretto said. “I don’t like to blow it.”
What is a typical day like for you as a forecaster?
I wake up at 4 a.m., look at models for two to three hours before I post something at 6 or 7 a.m. An average morning I look at 10 to 12 models, then I run them two to four times a day. I am running different variables — precipitation, surface precipitation, etc. I could look at 40 to 50 model runs every morning. Also at night I spend two hours looking at models between 4 and 7 p.m. When it snows it takes an hour longer — I look at every ski resort page.
Where do you pull your information from?
A lot of the information comes from pay weather sites. We need access to forecast models. We use WeatherBELL Analytics. We pay a lot to reproduce their images. All the models are found on that site. AccuWeather.com is the professional version. We don’t use NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. It is really limited and does not break down data.
You say you gather snow totals from ski resorts, but some people think they exaggerate conditions as a public relations gimmick.
They are all I can depend on. I trust them. I have to trust them. I have to verify storm totals. They are the only guys taking measurements at 5 p.m. and 5 a.m. everyday and doing it accurately. The ones who weren’t have started to in the last five years. If they are lying, they are all lying together.
What makes you unique as a weather forecaster?
The National Weather Service does Tahoe, but its Reno office covers a huge area, all the way to Mammoth. It talks about Tahoe really quickly … I am very microclimate. I am the only one forecasting for only ski resorts in Tahoe. No one else lives in the Tahoe Basin and is a hardcore skier and is posting [weather] content.
How much traffic does your website receive and is it growing?
It’s doubling each year. Just the Tahoe page had close to 3 million views last year, around 400,000 views a month. It will probably be 4 million this year [2014]. We were up 50 percent with the storms [in early December], now we are at 30 percent, which is an increase this year over last year.
Do you keep track of how accurate your predictions are?
Joel used to keep track of his accuracy, which was around 92 percent accurate. I am forecasting 16 mountains in the Basin. I nail it for some, blow it for others. It’s too crazy to figure out [my accuracy].Our website traffic is based on accuracy. If people didn’t think I was right more times than I was wrong, they wouldn’t read me. I do everything I can to be accurate.
What kind of criticism do you receive when you’re wrong?
The majority of people realize how hard it is to forecast. If one person makes a negative comment, I get two to three emails that say, ‘We all support you. We understand.’ I don’t hype storms. I have people following me for nine years.
How challenging is it to put out a daily forecast in dry months like last winter?
It’s torture. But traffic kept increasing all last January. I insert interesting comments like comedy. I try to keep it light. When there is a six-to seven-week dry spell, I hate it. I’d rather be talking about a snowstorm two days from now.
