I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in meteorology and developed numerical prediction models for the National Weather Service so I will chime in. The ECMWF model has been slightly ahead of the other national centers on statistics such as the 500mb anomaly coefficient but like most stories in the media that people feast on that doesn't tell the whole story. The extent of the National Weather Service's obligations is much wider than ECMWF. The National Weather Service is currently soliciting bids for a new infusion of computer power (and I am working on the procurement) so don't believe what you read about not getting upgrades - it simply isn't true.

As previously posted, the prudent thing to do is look at the National Hurricane Center's forecast as the results of many models go into that forecast. On any particular day, any model can be good or bad. Often, different model forecasts are closer to each other than the real world. And, by the way, ECMWF has made many improvements to their forecast model, both resolution, physics, and the generation of initial conditions, as have the other national centers, since 2006. 2006 is an eternity ago.

That's great news about the long over due upgrade being worked on. 2006 was the year when the ECMWF was upgraded and of course there have been many since as you stated. I have high regard for the scientists and meteorologists who work tirelessly to provide us with potential live saving information and forecasts. They deserve the best software/hardware available. In my opinion, they should have had that long ago, an eternity ago even. Thank you for your contribution to this project. For everyones safety, I hope the upgrade is a success.

ECMWF was founded in the 70s and has installed new computer systems on a regular basis - typically every few years or so. There is nothing magic about 2006. The National Weather Service similarly does computer system upgrades every 2-3 years, and has been doing so for a very long time. They just installed a new system last year and will be installing another new system in the first half of 2017 and another system in 2019, under an existing contract. There aren't any "long over due upgrades" - they upgrade on a regular basis as HPC technology warrants. One can argue that the size of the systems should be larger but the frequency of upgrades is pretty much in synch with what makes sense to do based on technology changes. The system are typically tens of thousands of CPUs.

tuccillo so let me get this straight, your putting your undergraduate and graduate degrees up against my arthritic knee:D

Are meteorologists alarmists?

The short answer is yes! It's always about ratings for the television media. IMHO

I would like to be informed than to be surprised, or not prepared.

On the other hand, they sure got Hurricane Sandy right. What a disaster.

I would never do that! I always rely on how bad knees ache, how many times per minute the crickets chirp, if the birds are flying south, the amount of fur on the caterpillars, and the Farmers Almanac ;-). The high tech stuff and equations are greatly overrated.

Only the guys on television. They have a documented bias towards over forecasting precip. The folks at the National Weather Service are evaluated and they call it like it is.

Well with your background you must agree that this bad weather is all because they keep sending that junk into space. Never had this type of weather until after they launched Sputnik:D