The city of Atlanta has been gripped within a true Snowpacalypse for the last day or so.

Students spent the night on buses or at schools, commuters abandoned their cars or idled in them all night and the highways-turned-parking lots iced over when a winter storm slammed the city, according to reports.

The human drama here is tremendous, but for me it was insightful to watch the reaction of Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal, attempting to deflect blame last night after the fiasco ensued.

In remarks during a late-night news conference (see video) Deal had the following to say about a severe winter event in the Atlanta metro area.

“We have been confronted with an unexpected storm that hit the metropolitan area,” he said. He would add that on Tuesday morning, at 10 a.m., he issued an executive order to employees saying it was a “liberal leave day” as some parts of the state would see severe weather. But of Atlanta, Deal said: “At that time it was still, in most of the forecasts, anticipated that the city of Atlanta would only have a mild dusting or a very small accumulation if any, and that the majority of the effects of the storm would be south of here. Preparations were made for those predictions.”

At 10 a.m. Deal should have been exercising his power as the state’s top official to ensure that people, from his own employees down to children in kindergarten, were heading home early. Here’s why:

Let’s start with the NAM model, the government’s best mesoscale model that is designed to specifically forecast localized weather effects. Here’s the snowfall accumulation forecast from its 12z run, which would have been available just at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday:

You will notice that the Atlanta area is forecast for get 2.5 to 3.5 inches of snow. Which is just about exactly what it got. It was forecast to begin around noon.

OK, let’s assume the governor, or whoever was advising him on forecasts, didn’t see the new run of the NAM model at 10 a.m. (What the heck were the advisers doing, if not tracking mesoscale models?)

Let’s look at a run of the NAM that would have been available at about 4 a.m. Tuesday:

This forecast still calls for 1.5 to 2.5 inches of snow in the metro area — far more than a “dusting” and certainly enough to cause the kind of crippling effects seen in the Atlanta metro area.

Now let’s look at the GFS model, which is a global model so it has a lower resolution. This is the United States’ best forecast model. The 06z run of this model would have been available before 7 a.m. ET to the Georgia governor. Here’s a look at its snowfall accumulation forecast:

It can be a bit hard to see because of the lower resolution, but the GFS model is forecasting 2 inches of snow in the Atlanta metro area. That is what we call agreement in the models, and leads to a higher degree in forecast confidence.

But what were forecasters actually saying? In their 4:11 a.m. ET forecast discussion, the National Weather Service meteorologists wrote:

“In main band for the afternoon and tonight … have snow/sleet amounts of 1-3 including ATL Metro.”

Boom. They nailed it.

Maybe the governor was listening to a private weather company? One of the largest is Accuweather. Courtesy of Mike Smith, here’s what they issued at 7 a.m. ET on Tuesday:

Atlanta is included in the area expected to get 1 to 3 inches of snow.

So what does all this mean? At least three hours in advance of the 10 a.m., when Gov. Deal proclaimed the city was forecast to get a dusting, it was clear from the forecast models and the forecasters themselves that Atlanta was in for a major snow event on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

If I was a parent in Atlanta whose kid spent the night in a school, I would be extremely angry. The state should have known. And if I were a meteorologist in Georgia, I’d be mad too. They nailed the forecast. The state government botched it.

Forecasters are far from perfect, let’s be honest about that. But when they nail a forecast they shouldn’t be scapegoated.

For shame.