Long range forecasts strongly suggest that the weather will be precipitation free for virtually the ENTIRE USA outside of Alaska, with the exception of the Northwest coast states (WA, OR and some of Northern CA - you guys always cop it this time of year).
Here's a 48hour precipitation map for the period of next Monday through Tuesday night: http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/...
Before anyone flames me in disgust for suggesting that a weather forecast 8-9 days away is worth a damn, let me say this:
Usually I wouldn't rely at all on such a forecast, but this forecast seems to be exceptionally robust - good enough to trust as a general guide.
The main long term model used by the NWS (the GFS model) is giving a remarkably stable result for the period of between 6 and 12 days from now.....with no precip for anywhere (except maybe AR and LA on days 6-7).
PLUS the last several runs of the GFS (over at least 2 days - I haven't accessed further back than that) have been very stable for this period.
Furthermore, the lack of precipitation anywhere makes it hard to see how most races that we care about might get any kind of significant precip, even if the forecast is significantly off in its details.....(which it will no doubt be).
Looks like it will be warm, too (here's a summary map)
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/...
My question is this:
Does knowing the weather on Election Day help us plan GOTV activities? - or is this diary totally silly?
My feeling is that it ought to help. We are trying to get as many folks out to do GOTV as possible, and knowing that the weather won't be miserable should help folks who were wavering about traveling out of state to help with GOTV to volunteer and make firm travel plans.
Again, the only really hot races (all House) which look like having bad weather are WA-8, ID-1, and possibly CA-04, CA-11.
I think this is worth some discussion. If one buys the idea that the weather will be good on Election Day.......is it good for the Dems?