psuhoffman

thanks, and what would you suggest?

I meant the GFS. You said it’s not…ugh never mind

Yes I discovered it’s getting warmer. Right after Al Gore invented the internet.

It was south

No wait a minute… if he wants to give me credit for discovering it’s getting warmer…

I know it’s facetious but that 2014 storm it was in the mid 20s and it’s only warmed like 1/2 a degree since then. And the 2018 storm was even more recent and not really that borderline when the snow was falling.

Thanks Nostradamus

I wish that’s all that was wrong with him.

Right but the point is it was LESS WRONG then all the other models day 5-8 and so on a chart of verification scores it would look good.

But this point is actually a great example of what I meant by "when all we care about is how much snow falls in our yard it might not align with verification scores". Yes the AIFS had multiple runs in the day 5-8 range with HECS snowfall results for our area. But, those results were real, just displaced about 150 miles to the northeast. And no other model, at those ranges, were even close...the GFS didn't start showing those crazy snow totals until like day 4 out. So when compared to all the other models, which didn't have an HECS anywhere at all...the AIFS which had it but displaced a small amount too far southwest, the AIFS was by far the closest to the truth (the less wrong) model in the day 5-8 period. We look at them all wrong, in that we expect them to be exactly right at a range that there is almost no chance they will be. The AIFS showing a HECS somewhere in the northeast at all day 5-8 was a win for it...but we think it was wrong because the big snow ended up not over us.

Verification scores don't lie. However, when all we care about is how much snow ends up on our lawn, that doesn't always necessarily correlate to some hemispheric h5 or MSLP verification score! Also, sometimes we see a model leading the scores chart and think "that means it's right" when it really means it's slightly less wrong than the others.

This definitely has merit, thinking back in the late 90's and early 2000's stuff at day 3-5 was treated like we look at stuff day 7-10 now. We didn't even try to look at a specific storm threat past day 5, most of the models didn't even run past 144 hours and it was a complete waste of time. Usually by 72 hours we have pretty good idea what the major features will be, but now we also expect meso scale things to be right and that was never a thing in the past. And in marginal setups where a 1-2 degree difference is huge, expecting models to nail that is crazy. But some people do now. So maybe it's also a case of expectations increasing faster than the actual improvements which gives the perception things are worse. I do think there is some truth the the decreased consistency of bias errors but it's likely not as bad as I am perceiving it.

@Terpeast @WxUSAF Was the Palm Sunday blizzard of 1942 one of the HECS storms that would likely not have happened today? I know when this was a topic and that regression study was done Feb 1987 was a lost one and one other was mentioned, was it 1942? Baltimore got 22" but the temperature never got below 33 degrees the whole storm. Seems unlikely that would have worked out today with the roughly 3.5F increase in temps since then. That's kinda depressing...one of Baltimores biggest snowstorms ever would probably just have been a dismal rainy spring day if that same exact thing happened again today.

It really dampens the wave around 90-96 hours. It doesn't eject enough energy, most of it hangs back, the wave dies with no mid and upper level support at all as it slides east.

RGEM did not look like it was going to be suppressed at 84 hours. Guess we will see with the GGEM soon

I remember it well...part of the extremely underperforming March/April 2018 period. We had a really amazing pattern and were very unlucky to only get one snowstorm out of it, and yes even with the time of year. We had the miller b rug pull storm on March 8th. There was a good threat around March 14th that got suppressed. We did get the very good storm March 20th but then there was a boundary wave early April that went just to our north and that storm April 7th which did not fail because of being April the wave got suppressed by a NS SW coming across over the top and the worst possible time and pressed the boundary to our south. Yes things can get suppressed in April.

By the way...take a look at the temperatures at Westminster on either side of that 32" snowstorm! This is why I scream at people who say we need to have a cold pattern to get a big snowstorm. This storm was 10"+ in Baltimore and DC also! 1942-03-17, 71, 38, 0.26, 0.0, M 1942-03-18, 69, 46, T, 0.0, M 1942-03-19, 50, 38, T, 0.0, M 1942-03-20, 61, 29, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-21, 60, 40, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-22, 59, 38, 0.54, 0.0, M 1942-03-23, 53, 35, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-24, 54, 30, T, T, M 1942-03-25, 56, 27, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-26, 58, 26, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-27, 57, 30, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-28, 55, 38, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-03-29, 39, 29, 1.10, 10.0, 10 1942-03-30, 52, 26, 2.20, 22.0, 32 1942-03-31, 50, 36, 0.05, 0.0, 18 1942-04-01, 52, 35, 0.00, 0.0, 12 1942-04-02, 59, 33, 0.00, 0.0, 3 1942-04-03, 67, 45, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-04-04, 65, 45, 0.13, 0.0, M 1942-04-05, 80, 46, T, 0.0, M 1942-04-06, 84, 50, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-04-07, 77, 55, 0.00, 0.0, M 1942-04-08, 72, 53, T, 0.0, M

1942: 32" Official reporting station listing below. I was off by a couple days it was the 29-30th. 1942-03-29, 39, 29, 1.10, 10.0, 10 1942-03-30, 52, 26, 2.20, 22.0, 32 Some parts of Carroll county got up to 40"! FYI: the 2016 storm might have beat this, reports across Westminster area were 30-34" in that storm, but Westminster lost its official reporting station in 2012. They had an official reporting station from the 1800s up until 2012 but nothing since. The airport no longer keeps snowfall data. The old barracks did but stopped.

Maybe this is perception bias, but when it came to my ability to predict what a significant storm would end up doing from the guidance, it was easier for me in the late 90s and early 2000s with the old school MRF/AVN/GGEM/ECMWF and short range ETA/NGM. Those models were way way way less accurate, but they tended to be less accurate in a more consistent way. They each had very very very universally consistent bias errors and if you knew how to correct for them they were useful. Now...they are all more accurate in that they are more likely to be closer to the actual truth. But they are much higher resolution and their errors tend to be less consistently in the same direction. This makes it much harder to correct for them and determine what their errors are. Not trying to be controversial here, and I could be wrong...but at times I felt it was easier to forecast using the models 20 years ago in the medium range than now.

Westminster's biggest snowstorm on record was March 31-April 1 Yes the odds of snowfall start to go down significantly past March 10th BUT we've had enough random snowstorms even up until about April 1, especially NW of the fall line, to at least keep an eye on it. See if that random once every 15 years type storm pops up. If you need days and days of snowcover after and let the fact it starts to melt the next day ruin it for you...then ya maybe you should check out. lol

Icon has been better this winter, from my observations. Not great, no model has been great, but its not been any further off than anything else and frankly has been more consistent than some of the other guidance for several events.

Back in the fall several people made the correct point that this winter would be heavily northern stream dominant, and given the state of the northern stream lately (fast and chaotic) it would mean whatever snow threats we did end up getting would be unlikely to resolve at any significant leads. Several people referenced 2013-14 as an example, when we got numerous snow events but they were far from resolved until inside 24 hours! Some, like early Dec 2013, was a positive bust in the nowcast! There was a negative bust for all except the PA line people in early Feb also. Both cases the going forecast as the storm began was WAY off...one turned snowier and one not. But I've found it entertaining and sometimes frustrating to see all the "why are the models sucking arse" posts all winter when this was a known thing coming in, it was predicted over and over...and yet people still expected 100 hour forecasts to end up accurate, knowing that this pattern was not one models would resolve details on at any lead let along 100 hours plus. big picture he is totally right. But...sometimes late in the season this little boundary waves can be sneaky good given the increased baroclinicity. This also seems to be increasing in recent years...maybe elephant related? While it helps us less and less often, when we do get a flush hit from a weak little boundary wave they sometimes are way more than you would think just looking at the synoptics. That isn't something you would forecast from range though, its just something to root for as a "sometimes this can be sneaky good if we get lucky" thing.

cool

I know I shouldn’t stir the pot, but I was bored and it’s soooo easy with him.

@WesternFringe There is 0 chance that 15" report is accurate, for all the reasons you eloquently laid out in a logical rational scientific way. There is also a 0% change that stormy will accept any of those rational logical arguments.