Rhino16
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Posts posted by Rhino16
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33 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:
As we move into a more favorable time for severe weather, I'd like to pass along some personal and professional resources for severe weather that I have found useful over the years.
First, the professional resources:
- The Storm Prediction Center's (SPC) Rich Thompson gave a nine part series on tornado forecasting some years ago at the University of Oklahoma. It was recorded and uploaded on YouTube and has significantly expanded my knowledge of tornado forecasting and severe weather in general. Each video is about one hour long. Link:
- You will hear a lot about Elevated Mixing Layer (EML) over the coming months. There is a great research paper regarding the role of EMLs and northeast severe weather. While we are technically in the Mid Atlantic, the underlying fundamentals discussed in the paper are great for improving your knowledge. Link: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/25/4/2010waf2222363_1.xml
- Each year, there are questions about the SPC probabilistic outlooks. This link does a great job cross explaining the outlook and cross walking the percentages and the corresponding categories. Link: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/SPC_probotlk_info.html
- Here is a great research paper focused on the SPCs probabilistic verification of their outlooks: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/33/1/waf-d-17-0104_1.xml
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Some helpful links for real time observations:
- Delaware mesonet: https://www.deos.udel.edu/
- Maryland mesonet: https://mesonet.umd.edu/
- Keystone (Pennsylvania) mesonet: https://keystone-mesonet.org/
Second, some personal observations:
- There are numerous mesoscale boundaries across the area. They play a unique role in forming and disrupting convection and wreck havoc on forecasting.
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The wedge always wins, until it doesn't.
- If we have a steady south-southwest wind, that seems to be better are eroding the wedge quicker.
- Getting a Day 2 Moderate Risk is a jinx.
- Events seem to set up further south at the last minute. See June 13, 2013. Day 1 Moderate Risk for DC that ended up in North Carolina.
- I have found that it is better to be level headed and expect a bust. There are so many small scale features that aren't resolved until 4 to 8 hours prior to the event.
- Downsloping kills events, but if you have either really cold temps aloft or better yet, a stout EML, then we can all win. Learn to look for these features.
- During large outbreaks, look to western North Carolina for what's coming our way. That's usually 4 to 6 hours from DC metro.
I hope this helps and good luck to everyone this year.
Any observations about warm fronts in combination with a wedge, and how they can play into severe? I vaguely recall something of the sorts, but I’d have to research again. Perhaps it’s a more early season issue.
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Had a few seconds of sun in Blacksburg before clouds and drizzle began. Friends who traveled had quite the experience though.
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I’m not in Richmond, but did anyone happen to hear or feel something shake around 10:45 - 10:47? Apparently it showed up on seismograms in fredericksburg…
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29 minutes ago, GaWx said:
In bold for seven categories I’m referring to where the respective seasons ended up on average vs the 3-6 seasons’ most active CSU April forecasts for each category. There’s lots of overlap from category to category, which is intuitive, though they’re not necessarily all the same years from category to category.
To clarify in case anyone is wondering, I do not think CSU is trying to sensationalize as I respect them for their objectivity, knowledge, analytical abilities, and clear communication showing how they get their numbers. I still think the season will be very active even if this April CSU forecast ends up being a bit too bullish.
Thanks. Interested to see updated numbers as the year continues.
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9 hours ago, GaWx said:
There is good reason to hope that this April CSU forecast is going to end up too high based on past very active April CSU predictions. They’ve been making April predictions since 1995. I see a pretty clear pattern when they’ve gone very active in April:
1. # NS: They’re predicting 23. Prior to this the highest they predicted in April was 17-19 (five times). Four of those five progs ended up too high. For those 5, they averaged 2.8 too high.
2. NS days: They’re predicting 115. Prior to this the highest they predicted in April was 85-95 (four times). All four of those progs ended up too high. The highest actual of these four was only 58 and they averaged a whopping 40.5 too high!
3. # H: They’re predicting 11. The prior highest predicted in April was 9 (six times). All of those 6 progs ended up too high by an average of 3.
4. H days: They’re predicting 45. The prior highest progs in April were 40-45 (five times). Of these five, four progs came in too high. The five averaged a whopping 19 too high!
5. # MH: They’re predicting 5, which they’ve predicted three other times in April. All three of those progs came in too high by an average of 2.33.
6. MH days: They’re predicting 13, which is tied for the highest ever predicted in April. They’ve progged 10-13 five times. Of those five, three progs were too high. The five averaged 3.25 too high.
7. ACE: They’re predicting 210. The prior highest April progs were 160-183 (five times). Of these five, all progs ended up too high with even the closest being 34 too high! The five averaged a whopping 85.8 too high!
Conclusion: If I were a betting man, I’d short CSU’s April ‘24’s forecast overall, especially NS Days, # H, and ACE.
Just to be sure, in the bold, you’re referring to the previous 5 (or other number) highest times?
Are they the same years?
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I only got like 0.4” of rain here, but it’s snowing now so… okay.
10:30am edit: Had a massive graupel/sleet/snow burst that topped the cars and got some grass accumulation.
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Wonder if I get in on some of that WV line later…
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1 hour ago, snowfan said:
Who ordered a wedge salad for tmrw? 3k nam is gross.
3k NAM is a terrible walk to class… I’m a terrible meteorologist in the making. No raincoat or umbrella.
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Congratulations kmlwx, good call on RIC... unfortunately. Here in the mountains wasn’t a lot better.
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31° and flurries. Maybe last flakes if none on Friday here?
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Just now, cbmclean said:
Yes, but that appears to pertain more to thicknesses as opposed to heights. I know that thicknesses are closely related to virtual temperature, and I know that thicknesses are related to heights. But if you look at maps of gph anomalies vs temp anomalies, you can tell they are related but never identical. What I would like to understand is why they are different.
Ah okay. That’s a question for next fall semester me…
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52 minutes ago, cbmclean said:
I wanted to say something meaningful about this but realized i could not because I have very little understanding of what actually causes ridges or troughs. If someone asked you to explain the mechanism(s) by which synoptic-scale variations in geopotential height arise and move around, how would you do it in a paragraph? I know that thicknesses are highly correlated to average temperature in a column of air, but is it just that simple for heights: cold air = low heights and warm air = high heights?
Assume your listener has a strong background in basic physics but very little detailed knowledge of fluid dynamics.
Does the hypsometric equation kind of relate to the question you’re asking?
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Looks like TT has the EC-AIFS, that will be fun to see when we get a run of it.
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So... I downloaded some ERA5 Reanalysis data, 80 years worth from 1945-2024, found the average temperatures and then found the change in average temperature between the 2 40 year periods. I then plotted it and these are the results for both days. There's definitely something happening around our part of the country and north on the 13th... what exactly, I don't know.
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Thunderstorm at 10am in February. Really awesome stuff. Second day in a row.
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Got 2 lightning flashes yesterday while taking weather class tests… let’s see if we get anymore today or tomorrow. Maple trees have red nibs on the end, and flowers are coming up. It’s spring.
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<1” at home,
4ish in Blacksburg. Trash.
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I've been using this NSF Unidata CAVE (Common AWIPS Visualization Environment) software this week and it's super cool. Still working my way around it. I guess it was presented at AMS this year...
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A wasp got inside today…
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Some of the trees around here have new growth on the ends of the branches. Some trees have buds of some type. Not sure if that’s normal for around here on February 3rd, but okay.
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DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH __ DEN _ PHX _ SEA
-1.0 _ -1.5 _ -0.8 __ 0.5 _ -1.2 _ -0.1 __ 0.1 _ -0.2 _ 0.3
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Some fat snowflakes are falling while I try to program this climate homework. Cars covered but may as well be wet rain as far as the ground is concerned.
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the bands of snow yesterday only managed to put down 0.2" despite the long duration, some impressive bands, and cold temps.
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2024 Severe Weather General Discussion
in Mid Atlantic
Posted
I don’t pay for pivotal and the ads are annoying but liveable. The annoying part is when the page refreshes and I have to move my cursor from a location I’m analyzing to click the scroll bar so i can arrow key over again.