Jump to content

vortex95

Meteorologist
  • Posts

    1,123
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Four Letter Airport Code For Weather Obs (Such as KDCA)
    KDCA
  • Gender
    Male
  • Location:
    SIlver Spring MD

Recent Profile Visitors

6,448 profile views
  1. I'm glad you brought up temp anomalies. This may have been mentioned prior, but I think the temp sensor at BOS is running at least 1 F too warm. Through 6/22, Logan is running 5.4 F above avg for the month. No other long-term climate location in New England is higher than 3.9 above for the month. Examples: PVD 3.9, ORH 3.8, CON 3.4,and BDL 2.1 above avg for the month so far. And I did a check of May. BOS +2.4, but PVD +1.1, ORH -0.3, CON -0.4, and BDL -0.6. This discrepancy may go back further. This goes to show that even 1 F off for temp is a big deal when over an extended period, and that significance increases as you get further out. 1 F avg higher for a year is more significant than 1 F higher than avg for a month, as one example. See how wx sensor issues, never mind UHI, can skew temp records and easily give an unrealistic picture of trends if not addressed in a timely fashion? Temp sensor calibration and other issues are nothing new, EWR had a +2 F bias for a few years this decade. I think it is corrected now, but it was *so* obvious there was an issue. Every month, EWR was 2 F warmer than NYC, LGA, and JFK, and the distance from EWR to all 3 of these locations is 20 mi or less, so no way EWR did not have a warm bias. Sometimes a warm bias at location is due to new construction nearby or the temp sensor re-located, and in both cases artificial heat sources contaminate the temp readings. What's worse, most of the time, these obvious errors go into the official climate record uncorrected. See the issue here? When wx stats are reported to us, we assume that they are accurate. Not always, and systemic errors do add up over time and can make a big difference. But rarely do you see any outlet, big or small, mention the margin of error/uncertainty in measurements or note there is a problem at a site. And one important item that complicates the issue. ASOS/AWOS are designed primarily for *aviation* use. This means VIS, cloud cover/height, wind, and altimeter take precedence, and T/Td are secondary. And most climate sites in the U.S. and globally are located at airports, which is not ideal due to UHI and proximity to large swaths of asphalt and jet exhaust. So being skeptical of the temp records and trends are certainly justified, and the bias is warmer, not cooler, so the large-scale warming that has occurred is not as high as it is said.
  2. When was this? The big tor day that CoastalWx was all excited about recently? LOL.
  3. I note you are being facetious here, which is ok. Social media I would argue is what influences the population most now, way more than traditional media like TV.
  4. Since GFSX MOS only goes out 8 days, I assume you are looking at 2 m temps? I would not use 2 m temps beyond 5 days as they get whacked often b/c the do not incorporate climo stats like MOS does. Same goes for ECMWF. I've seen the GFS 2 m temps a number of times over the years show 110 for BOS DY7 are beyond.
  5. From a former co-worker: "I'm up the First CT Lake and it's overflowing. River is 10x the normal summer flow and completely unfishable. Locals saying they've never seen the lake this high."
  6. This is not a "contest." It is a discussion forum. And the fact the hot wx looks like it will occur irrelevant here. I was talking about the overuse and obsession w/ "heat dome" and other concocted labels/terms the media focused on to hype.
  7. You are missing the point. Target audience is not the issue. It's how things are handled and communicated. When you commit logical fallacies and display clear biases, cognitive or otherwise, that skews the truth or outright lies, influencing perception of many, and this biased information get shared across social media. How is this good for society overall? Science communication should be objective and present *all* data, reasonable views/sides, and note caveats/shortcomings of the data/findings, not cherry-pick to promote a particular narrative That's bad science and disingenuous. And calling those out for it or noting errors is part of the scientific process. Science is self-correcting and evolves over time, not ever "settled."
  8. Yes, but normal waxing and waxing decadal cycles of tornado activity occur by default in the large picture. For instance, there was a distinct minimum in annual totals inn the second half of the 1980s, and another in the mid 2010s. We would really need another 30-40 years of high quality data IMHO o map out normal cyclic activity in tornado patterns. It could be shifts W-E and then E-W as part of a larger cycle over many decades. Also, all states are not created equal for symmetric tornado count changes. Population change/distribution and visibility are two factors. Also, seasonal trends. For instance, there appears to be a shift for more tornadoes in the cool season w/ a decrease in the warm season. This would tend to make tornadoes under-reported in the cool season b/c of less daylight. Hence, uniform extrapolation over all areas/states can not be applies here. There is still and increase net-net of course.
  9. It's juiced in the column for sure. K-index as high as 40 in w-cntrl VA. That is about as high as it gets these parts.
  10. Yes, all states under-counted a lot prior to the 1990s. Once the NWS Modernization and Restructuring occurred in the 90s, detection or documentation of tornadoes improved considerably.
  11. IL had 20+ tornado reports yesterday, and the state is now over 190 for the year (*reports*, not actual tornadoes, there are duplicate reports in this total). Attached is a map for the bigger state totals through 6/19. The disparity is amazing. Why IL only so much more? It's not like when an area is soaked or buried repeatedly w/ rain/snow. That is more on the synoptic level and areal coverage is larger. When you get down to a local level, such as an area that is about avg size for a U.S. state, that's not the same for scale. And to get tornadoes, it is a lot more conditional (harder) than say a lot of heavy rain or snow over an extended period. But given the vagaries of the atmosphere/patterns and given enough time, you are going to see things due to the law of large numbers and averages. Just pointing this out b/c some try to assign a specific meaning or cause, where sometimes there is none. Yes, I know of the hypothesis that tornado alley is shifting E, but we really do not have enough solid data IMHO. Tornadoes, esp. weak and short-lived ones, were severely under-counted prior to the 1990s since storm chasing was not yet mainstream, WSR-88Ds did not exist for operational use, nor did the Internet (at least in widespread use). ~35 years of data is not enough time to establish a trend either way. I would argue that it wasn't until 2010 or so when we started to get close to actual number of tornadoes that occur every year in the U.S. w/ the advent of the smartphone and dual-polarization radar.
×
×
  • Create New...