KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A major announcement…

Forecasting the weather in the KC area (and really for the Plains) in general is a very difficult thing, especially during this time of the year. Careful consideration has to be used when deciding who may see a bunch of snow and who may see nothing at all. Who may be more prone to severe weather risks and who may not have to worry about it as much.

Dedication, passion and commitment (and really your trust) are all so important to how we present our weather information to you, our customers. Whether it’s telling you about a snow storm that perhaps others may not see or telling you about a perfectly sunny and wonderful day, forecasting isn’t for the faint of heart. Mother Nature will humble you time and time again and that’s something that is always in the back of my mind.

Essentially, what we do every day is predict things that, odds are, don’t exist. We do it accurately and carefully so you know what to plan for and prepare for.

TV stations though throw around words like accuracy quite a bit, but how do you know which forecast is truly more accurate? Which team is the most reliable over the course of dozens, hundreds or thousands of forecasts? That’s where an independent evaluator comes in handy. A business that isn’t connected to any TV station, a company that evaluates forecasts for accuracy.

That’s why for the third year in a row, the FOX4 Weather Team is proud to announce that our forecasts have been judged to be the MOST ACCURATE TV forecasts in Kansas City. And once again, it wasn’t really close.

Each night, WeatheRate gets forecast information from the various TV stations in KC, as well as in other TV markets, and compares those forecasts to reality. Did it rain, what time? Did it snow and how much? Was it windy? What was the high for the day, the low for the day? Was there severe weather in the area as well as a host of other parameters. These forecast data points go out over the course of four days. In the end, we get a weekly grade and accumulates over the course of 52 weeks.

Each “season” starts on March 1 and concludes on the last day of February. A new season starts tomorrow.

In the end, FOX4 Weather once again excelled in producing a daily forecast more accurate than others in KC. Passion, dedication to the craft, decades and decades of experience watching KC weather patterns all help with this honor and it’s an accomplishment that we take great pride in.

Are we perfect… goodness no. In daily forecasts where perhaps a few degrees means everything, or when it may or may not rain or snow and how much, we excel. We work very hard day in and day out to bring that information to you with each weathercast, along with a dose of “who we are” so that you know how to prepare for what’s coming.

In the end, this means accuracy. As a matter of fact, when looking at our score vs. other stations in the country scattered all over, from the easier-to-forecast deep south and western U.S. deserts, to the tough-to-forecast Plains, we excel.

Our score and team’s forecasts are considered to be the most accurate, not only in KC, but also for the entire Midwest, in TV markets that are rated by WeatheRate.

We once again, as we’ve done each year that we’ve been No. 1, broken our previous year’s accuracy record for KC weather forecasting. Accuracy scores that have never been achieved before in WeatheRate’s measuring accuracy for KC (going back to 2005).

Also unique to FOX4 Weather is our daily transparency to you. We show you our previous day’s high temperature forecast and then what type of weather you will expect to see. If we say it’s going to rain and the day is nice and sunny, obviously we’re wrong. If we tell you it’s going to be 40 degrees and it’s 45 degrees, we’re wrong. We give ourselves a +/- 3-degree range. Beyond that, we feel it’s more noticeable to you and perhaps what you might be planning. It’s a double level of transparency that can’t be found at any other station in the country to my knowledge. Again, we tell you when we’re wrong. Thankfully, last year that was rare as we had an 88% accuracy rating in our daily accuracy check. It was a rare day that we missed the actual weather. Our errors were typically temperature related, and mostly that we underestimated the temperatures for a particular day.

The bottom line is that you know what to expect, when to expect it, and you can be prepared for it. Again, we won’t ever be perfect. But overall, day in and day out, you’re getting a more accurate forecast from the FOX4 Weather Team, and in the end that’s what’s important.

Joe