etudiant

Is it not reasonable to anticipate a sloppy spring, providing a worthy pendant to a sloppy winter? After all, the core drivers in the Pacific all remain as before. If there is a development favoring something sharply different, I'd expect our site experts such as donsutherland1 to give us a heads up. There has been nothing thus far though.

Central Park perhaps 1", still very thin snizzle continuing, just consolidating the snow cover.

Sure is, so as the plane max speed is about 0.85 times the speed of sound, it underlines how strong the tail wind was to get over 800 miles per hour ground speed.

Please add a little explanation for those of us here who don't know what this measures or what it means.

NYC Central Park was around 1.5", with graupel all afternoon. Overall, a winter event of little note, but driving was really nasty.

Snow in Central Park seems to have ended at 10.45 am, with accumulation of less than an inch.

This is a 'learning winter', where we all learn humility. Fact is no model set has performed either consistently or reliably this winter, at least for the NYC area. Given that there is plenty of computer power available to throw at these problems, it suggests that there are real shortcomings in the models the forecasts are based on. Hope that the folks at NOAA and elsewhere recognize this and try to rework these fundamentals, because until that happens, things will not improve.

There should be a discount factor for longer term forecasts. So if gfs FV3 projects 4"/hr for 5 days out, discount by a factor of 5. That suggests modest snow at 0.8"/hr. Precedent would probably be supportive of that.

Not at all, rather Gravity Wave is blessed with a full consignment of Celtic genes.

Think it is really wonderful to see how much more variable our weather can be even over the near term, well beyond our current forecasting skills. It sure teaches us humility. That said, what can be learned from this? Are there any elements that we can look at to recognize that the modeling should be skeptically received? Donsutherland1 has pointed to the absent Pacific blocking for one, what are the others?

Sadly that has not translated to any significant snowfall for us NYC residents. Should we expect the balance of winter to be any different?

Funny, I read them as well grounded evaluations of the current situation. Particularly appreciated is that these are much more sober than those provided by some of the more opinionated/enthusiastic forecasters.

Here in Manhattan Central Park, a brief but intense event, with perhaps 0.75 inches of snow deposited in a half hour. Winds probably around 30 mph at peak. Think it was called very accurately by the various observers here.

For New Yorkers, coming off several years of good snows, a slow winter such as what we appear to be having would be more normal than another above average precipitation season. Only if it stays slow for the next five years would I'd start to be concerned.

Can't blame the model, it just does what it is told. This should however serve as a cautionary example, to keep people from getting too enamored with some specific model run. Imho, longer range forecasting is still embryonic at best. The skill levels must be embarrassing, but that is ok, we start from a low base. The main concern is that there does not seem to be a clear strategy for improvement other than to get more computer power to allow tighter model grids. Given the erratic performance of the tight grid IBM model, (Deep Thunder, I believe it is called) perhaps that is too optimistic a view. Possibly the models will need to have still better integrated physics, not a quick fix at all.

Thank you for putting this right. The older Pivotal Weather modeling only showed large negative numbers for the anomalies, so if the newer model verifies, we are looking at 40*F negative anomalies in late January. Impressive!

It shows much warmer for 12Z on Jan 28th on Pivotal Weather here: http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sfct&rh=2019011312&fh=360&r=conus&dpdt=&mc= Is this a model difference issue or am I missing something important?

Believe this show temperatures anomalies rather than temperatures. Still seriously chilly though.

The improvements remain modest, at least if the precipitation estimates over the 10 day horizon are the criterion. The stability of the forecast falls very rapidly after day three.

Apart from the warmer than usual water around Greenland, is there any evidence that this kind of post ice age event is possible during inter glacial periods such as the one we are now in?

Delighted to hear that!! Take good care of yourself, this place needs you.

JB swings for the fences, unlike most of his peers. That is why he has a devoted following. Admittedly, he has to eat crow more frequently than some as a result, but he clearly sees it as a reasonable tradeoff.

Thank you, donsutherland1 for this excellent outlook summary. It is the best winter status/expectations report for our area that I've seen.

The subduction you explain makes perfect sense. It is the heat surfacing that is puzzling. Will not the water coming up from below still be somewhat colder than the surface water it displaces? So even if it is warmer than it was without the GHG effect, it would still continue to take up heat, only at a lesser rate. Is this a reasonable description of the expected effect?

What is 'heat burial'? I'd been under the impression that while polar waters were slightly below 0*C, deep ocean water was around 4*C, with the temperature falling as the depth increases in temperate/tropical waters. Am I off base? Is there some paper that would help lay out the process in more detail?