A National Weather Service forecast for Coffeytown? Bogus, you say!

Well, the picture with Coffeytown on the weather girl's map certainly is bogus, but there actually is a National Weather Service forecast specifically for Coffeytown -- and for just about everywhere else in the continental United States. Most people living in rural areas like Coffeytown never see a forecast specifically for their immediate area, because there are no newspapers or TV stations that carry it. So they "make do" with the forecast for a nearby city.

In the case of a mountain location like Coffeytown, that's not a very good alternative, because elevation and terrain differences sometimes make Coffeytown's weather much different than that of Lynchburg, Charlottesville, or Lexington. For example as I write this, the Coffeytown forecast shows a chance of snow on this coming Tueday and Wednesday, while there's no snow in the forecast for the surrounding cities mentioned above.

Using algorithms that interpolate regional forecasts and factor in differences like elevation, the National Weather Service's computers actually generate pinpoint forecasts for points spaced every three miles apart throughout the continental United States! The link on the NWS page of this website displays the forecast for a point 7 miles ENE of Buena Vista, VA -- and that's Coffeytown!

If you're interested, you can find more information about the NWS pinpoint forecasts here.