vortex95

Since all the talk about wild animals. Here's something I found quite interesting as it relates to AI queries. I was listening to a WEEI morning show podcast from Jan, and it was in the news that a skier in China was mauled by a snow leopard. And I looked up snow leopard just to see what they looked like. I got that info, but of course, a list of AI common questions came up, and one was "Is snow leopard aggressive?" And the AI answer basically said no and no attacks documented on humans. Its reference source was a Reddit post from 10 years ago (attached). Yet the search also brought up a Reddit post about the Jan 2026 China attack as a link, independent of AI! So let me get this straight, AI uses a 10 yr old Reddit post that says no documented attacks from snow leopards, and it *ignores* a 6 month old Reddit post about a person mauled? WTF? AI can't see both Reddit posts, and create a better answer? The two Reddit posts directly contradict each other! Seems AI answers are either/or, it avoids caveats or "depending on the situation." Real useful...NOT!

Proxy! Snowfall seasons for the E Coast in very strong El Nino are hit or miss. No very strong El Nino has resulted in a blockbuster snow winter so far, at least for New England! One thing about very strong El Ninos, some fcsts for what happens in parts of the world have a high confidence. The 4 very strong El Ninos we have had since the 1950s, all have had suppressed ATLC hurr season and a mild CONUS winter. Active STJ and a wet srn tier also works. And everyone always thinks CA gets crushed w/ big rains and snows and the Pac NW is dry, However, in the 2015-16 event, CA underperformed big tine (prompting "endless drought" stupid hype) and the Pac NW was wet. Moral here? We have a limited dataset for very strong El Ninos, at least in the era where we can determine SSTs in the remote areas of the equatorial Pacific where it matters most, and given what happened in 2015-16, that suggests we have *not* seen the full range of what very strong El Ninos can do for sensible wx impacts around the globe simply b/c sample size is small. So if this El Nino ends up being the strongest on record, we may see some unexpected sensible wx emerge for parts of the globe, and given the non-linear nature of the Earth's system, it does not mean everything will be "worse" across the board. Higher temp anomalies end up impacting positive and negative feedbacks in various degrees and what ends up happening can be unexpected. Also, there are no less than a dozen other oscillations going on across the globe outside of ENSO, and we certainty have not seen every combo possible of then when very strong El Nino is occurring, so this can explain deviations. Yes, ENSO is among the strongest oscillations out there, but it does not occur in a vacuum! So maybe we will, esp. @CoastalWx, will be pleasantly surprised w/ frequent "VIOLENTLY BEAUTIFUL" snow vistas this coming winter! LOL. That being said, so far the ATLC hurr season is suppressed big time from the hostile upper-level conditions and the WPAC is much above avg (213% of Y-T-D ACE as of today), so that is working out as expected!

Global models has been showing a very active monsoon trough in the NWPAC w/ as many as 5 TCs at once. 5 named storms in this basin has happened many times. 6 only once on 8/15/2018. You get large monsoonal depressions and small spin-up gyres that are not always declared by JTWC. GFS for Monday shows 5 distinct systems of various intensity and size.

Was delayed, now goes into effect 8/11/26. https://dd.meteo.gc.ca/doc/genots/2026/08/03/NOCN04_CWAO_031225___62572

Came across this site. Excellent current stats and ranking for global TCs! https://global-tropical-cyclones.com/ And I got a better list of the top TCs globally by ACE. For some reason they counted Paka from 1997 twice. I think b/c the storm formed in the cntrl Pacific and crossed into the wrn Pacific. So really #20 on the list should be Lola from the NWPAC in 1957. This site from CSU is also excellent for S-T-D activity and archives. https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/

It has become a very large typhoon, which is to be expected w/ a system around this long gradually moving out of the tropics, but the inner core reforming like that w/ a smaller eye that a few days ago is surprising. The other day the eye was about 35 nm in diameter, but now about 20 nm. We still have another 5 days before landfall, so it may form a giant eye yet. Fcst to pass right over Okinawa. Three METAR sites to look at for Okinawa for the passage -- RODN, ROTM, and ROAH. It's too bad the WSR-88D at RODN was decommissioned a few years ago!

This is the type of drivel we see now (see attachment). The CFS this far out does more harm than good IMHO b/c too many ppl simply have no idea how to use it and its caveats or they do know, and just seek to monetize w/ hype. Ever notice winters forecasts from many, always hedging cold/snow, even when we have a solid knowledge and skill a strong El Nino leads to mild temps across the CONUS? And how these loosers aromatically think just b/c its cold or strong El Nino, that just doesn't mean big snowstorms, but the absolute extremes from history. I blot the name of these sites b/c why give thmn exposure. That's what they want! And the general idea that b/c this may be the strongest El Nino on record, means you can simply extrapolate up every sensible wx impact from it? Well, that's not how it works. The atmosphere does not work in a linear 1-2-3 fashion! A great case of this was 2024 when it was supposed to be the end of days for the ATLC hurr season, and you had the global spike in temp from the Hunga-Tonga eruption from the WV in the stratosphere. Warmer shifts the ITCZ farther N into the Sahara, as was the case several 1000 years ago when the Sahara was green. We got big rains the in Sahara, but the problem was that the source region for tropical waves was put into a much drier environment, plus, tropical waves came off Africa at a higher latitude where the SSTs are cooler. This squashed a large part of the "seeds" for TCs in the MDR, and the result was the peak of the season was severely suppressed, and this was not fcst by any, and the hurr season for total numbers were no where near the fcsts. So the above is an example of non-linear effects w/ higher global temps, as one example.

All set...weenies rejoice for this winter!

Now to get the RRFS added (i.e. the GARBAGE MODEL according to @CoastalWx! I don't see it. It did well for the R+ swath across New England for the last event, and actually was not high as the HRRR 8".

Thanks. I stand corrected!

Correction to the above. Here is revised ACE list top 20. Got it from this site: https://global-tropical-cyclones.com/ All sorts of neat global TC stats here. Allows one to quantify all basins season-to-date well along the historical info. For the list attached, for some reason they counted Paka from 1997 twice. I think b/c the storm formed in the cntrl Pacific and crossed into the wrn Pacific. So really #20 on the list should be Lola from the NWPAC in 1957. Also this site is great as well. https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/

And @CoastalWx said the convection was "boring" due to lame LTG!

It's 530am, why would there be that much LTG at this time of day? And I count 30 CGs in CT/MA in the last hr. So that means a lot of ICs. @CoastalWx"BUT I ONLY COUNT CGS!"

You do realize this is a tropical air mass. If you are looking for big tstms/svr, you should know better!

Correction. Not Key West 7/24/26, It is actually this: Corrotoman River in Mollusk, Lancaster County VA 7/4/22 Thank to @Rhino16 for pointing this out. https://x.com/deZabedrosky/status/2081401272578531578 Note that in order to listen to the audio and full size a video on X, you have to login now. About as classic "true" waterspout as you can get. Thin tall tube, slow moving, no rain, LTG, or wall cloud present, just TCU. Notice that after the base vortex moves over the dock, it re-emerges more intense and focused. This happens sometimes for spouts when the first come ashore. The rapid increase in friction can strengthen the base temporarily .