Roger Smith

Table of entries -- 2020 seasonal maxima in the Mid-Atlantic region Forecasts appear by order of BWI predictions, then sorted by DCA, IAD and RIC where tied to that point. Consensus is derived from medians although means would be similar. With 20 forecasts the median is the average of 10th and 11th ranked. The actual maximum to date will move up through this table (we can presume) to its eventual resting place. Later in the contest, a table of departures will be posted to show the evolving results of the contest. FORECASTER _________BWI _ DCA _ IAD _ RIC George BM ___________110 _ 111 _ 111 _ 112 NorthArlington101 ____103 _ 103 _ 101 _ 104 Roger Smith __________103 _ 103 _ 101 _ 102 tplbge ________________103 _ 101 _ 102 _ 103 H2O __________________102 _ 105 _ 102 _ 102 yoda _________________ 102 _ 103 _ 100 _ 104 wxdude64 ____________102 _ 102 _ 100 _ 103 WxUSAF ______________102 _ 101 __ 98 _ 100 Eskimo Joe ___________102 _ 100 _ 101 _ 100 WinstonSalemArlington __102 _ 100 _ 100 _ 102 ___ Consensus ________102 _ 101 _ 100 _ 102 WEATHER53 __________101 _ 101 __ 99 _ 103 Southmdwatcher _____ 101 __ 99 _ 101 _ 105 nw baltimore wx ______ 101 __ 99 __ 98 _ 100 C.A.P.E. _______________100 _ 104 __ 99 _ 103 MN Transplant _________99 __ 98 __ 98 __ 99 Rhino16 _______________ 99 __ 97 __ 99 _ 101 Wx Watcher 007 _______ 98 __ 99 __ 98 _ 101 Dan The Man __________ 98 __ 96 __ 97 __ 99 TSG ___________________ 97 __ 98 __ 95 __ 98 JakkelWx ______________ 96 __ 97 __ 97 _ 100 ___ Actual to date ______ 96 __ 93 __ 95 __ 94 _______________________________________________________ The means of the 20 forecasts are (contest means) _____ 101.1_ 100.9_ 99.9 _ 102.1

Okay, just a notice that this contest will close for entries at the end of the day Monday, the deadline is set at 06z 16th which is 0200h EDT (after midnight Monday, very early Tuesday) .... I will take entries as shown then so you can edit today or Monday without the need to notify. The table of entries will be based on what I see on Tuesday morning (will have the table of entries up within a few hours of the deadline). Don't forget we are at 3/0/0 so it's that plus whatever you think will happen to end of the year for a prediction of the overall seasonal count. Good luck !!

Monday 15th is the last day for entries or for editing your existing entries. No need to notify on edits, I will construct a table of entries from what I see on Tuesday. You can enter up to the end of the day (06z Tuesday is the cutoff). I will post a closed for entries note and start on the table of entries at that time. Good luck !!

Thanks for entries so far, will leave this open for more entries until June 15th and you can edit any entries you've made without notice, I won't be recording any predictions until I declare the contest closed. Since 95% of years have a max after that date and often a month or two after it, I can't see that people will gain much advantage but we'll see.

Prince Frederick laid down his crown and his ermine robes, and wandered off to who knows where, promising to return next winter. That could be 2038 the way things were going the past two so-called winters. Meanwhile he asked me to defend the realm (which I won't due to a nasty combination of inability and lack of funding) and to start a summer heat forecast contest, which I think is the only real reason for this post. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to predict the highest temperatures to be observed at each of (you guessed it) BWI, DCA, IAD and SLC just kidding RIC. You can add SLC if you want, choose any number between 99 and 101 and you'll be right. Wonderful scenery, non-challenging climate they have round Utah, I would go and tell you more but they won't let me in because of some cough going around. Anyway, here's my opening salvo in this contest, torn between the idea that the cold spell in May guarantees a scorcher, or just possibly is a sign of some long awaited return to the climate of the 1850s. Fat chance of that, so I will go with BWI _ 103 DCA _ 103 IAD _ 101 RIC _ 102 and make the bold prediction that I will not be dead last, or dead, or last, but ya never know. The real deadline is not T384 but whenever we have a nice turnout and I spot anything on the model runs that looks like potential action in this contest. Let's say it won't close before June 10th end of day, but could go a few days past that. And once again I for one (insert verb of choice) my Mid-Atl overlords from my distant outpost beyond the hills. Get a 10% discount by mentioning "lack of contrails" in your post.

Here's the annual "hurricane forecast contest" with a simplified format compared to other recent years, just the seasonal count is required this year, no monthly details. You can add your thoughts about that of course. The contest remains open to mid-June as the June monthly count won't be all that big a deal-breaker. Keep in mind that with Arthur's brief reign of slight disruption the count is already 1/0/0. My entry will be 20/13/7 so quite an active year and I suspect the main focus of activity may be the east coast for a change. That's not to say the usual areas of activity won't see their fair share, but I am expecting some fairly strong storms to develop in the Atlantic near the Carolinas possibly impacting the mid-Atlantic states more often than we've seen in several years. Post your forecasts and discussions ...

Will say 1492 and first high risk a major outbreak in the south-central states around Feb 8th-9th.

Oops, no tie-breaker. But I don;t foresee being tied so there you go. Not looking too bad on the long-range charts for an early end to frost-free season, question might be, would all four go at the same time? Takes a fairly potent cold shot to do that, I would assume, with DCA in such a warmed up location and RIC further south.

Given that voters in most countries are divided on their level of concern about climate change, I think the best political solution is to reshape the paradigm and take climate change out of the equation to some extent, focusing instead on benefits in general from alternative (non-fossil-fuel) energy sources. If there are demonstrable benefits from such a transition, then the climate change issue fades into the background. Another change in political emphasis should be towards mitigation of problems. Whether the alleged problems are caused by AGW, other forms of natural variability, or non-climate factors, these problems need to be addressed. For example, forest fires (or wildfires) are said to be increasing. Maybe they are, maybe not. But more to the point, an advanced society should be able to manage this problem. It is probably more cpmplex than just AGW forcing more fires. There are questions like changing lifestyles (the exurban population increasing rapidly), interface questions, and philosophies about fighting or containing fires. So that sort of climate-related issue can be approached as a self-contained problem that the climate is not a key factor in controlling, in fact it would make a lot of sense to have large changes in our management of the wildfire issue, regardless of what the climate is doing or not doing. To some extent, I think the climate "emergency" is overblown hype, those who peddle it for political gain seem to have no knowledge whatsoever of the range of past weather and climate events. There may be subtle changes as part of AGW, or what we see may be just inevitable natural variability. Either way, it's a safe bet that nothing we do will actually change the future weather observed on our planet by more than a very slight amount. So knowing that, we should have mitigation strategies in place, rather than dealing in these fantasies about paying a tax on carbon to change the weather. That simply isn't going to happen, no matter how many people say so with whatever level of urgency and passion.If the oceans begin to rise in a more dramatic fashion, what can be done about it? Plans must be drawn up for protection or even removal of critical infrastructure, and populations at risk, but only when it becomes apparent that there is no alternative. I don't say this to make denial a policy, I say it because it is the only rational approach. The political parties who deal in a tax-to-solve approach are just deluding themselves and their voters. Their plans cannot possibly work. Mitigation might include diversion of some ocean water into massive desalination/irrigation projects which are needed anyway for other reasons. This is what we should be doing, rather than taxing carbon.

All four very early 10/17 in massive wintry outbreak from Midwest.

April 8, 2024 ... long totality from west TX northeast to upstate NY and Quebec. Bound to be some cloud along that line but should be within reach of most people on the forum with a bit of planning (my target would be west TX, unless a week in advance it looks like a big high over Quebec then I can go there instead).

If highs are in the 38-43 F range I would expect you would lose about 2" a day mostly to sublimation (loss into the air as water vapor). As I mentioned before the storm, we had a similar snowfall here last Wednesday that was unrelated to your storm except it happened at a similar temperature and we've had those sorts of temperatures since, and I still have full snow cover of about 2-3" here today. If it gets much above 43 F though, it's going to disappear in two or three days or so except in deeper shade. Since there's some chance of a top-up on Friday, I would expect you will get to that event with half your snow pack intact, and of course all large snow piles will start melting down a bit, but those will last until there's three or four very mild days and/or some heavy rain.

also IAD 10.6 storm total, BWI 6.6

As of mid-day climo reports, storm totals appear to be 5.4" DCA, 5.6" BWI and 7.1" IAD. Will likely add to all those with final reports.

Euro 192h ... this x5

Nice, I went from dividing by 3 to multiplying by 2. (final calls 7.0 for all three major airports, DCA should say 9.0, CHO 12.5)

Feb 3rd 2019.

So 18z would be about 1-2 hours before sunrise there? Damage will be enormous from the looks of those images.

Looks like the eye is headed for either eastern Shikoku or the strait between that island and Honshu but in any case a second landfall will occur near Kobe just west of Osaka. Given the populations and port infrastructure of the two landfall areas, the second one will be more problematic. Hoping the first one weakens the storm enough that the second landfall will be less intense, perhaps a strong cat-1 as opposed to 2. Well it won't be long now looking at radar and satellite animations, the thing is accelerating NNE-ward. Roughly 15-20 million people live in the Osaka region then there's Nagoya one bay east, five million more there.

Since it's 945 mb out in the open Pacific now, more likely to be around 950-955 at landfall perhaps? Seems to be only a strong cat-2 or weak cat-3 at present.

Will have some on-scene reports from my travelling friends who are going to ride this out in Kyoto, supposed to be within 50 miles of the eye around 06z to 08z (Tuesday afternoon JST). This is a radar I will be watching to check the exact track of Jebi. http://www.jma.go.jp/en/radnowc/ Good satellite imagery here: http://www.jma.go.jp/en/gms150jp/ It is midnight in the region now so about 12-15 hours to landfalls and impacts (first Shikoku Island, eastern half, then near Kobe west of Osaka, storm accelerates and moves across Honshu in a few hours and then at TS intensity up the north coast as far as western Hokkaido). My friends are in a modern style hotel that is a smaller building than some nearby, and the whole area is flat but 45 metres above sea level so I'm thinking no real flooding or tsunami potential, they are also on the west side of the building so much of the storm will be producing east to south winds and they are relatively sheltered from those. If the track stays a bit west, should be close to remnants of eyewall during height of storm, hoping for some interesting accounts if not pictures. Told them to expect a bit of a cleanup day outside on Wednesday then back to normal.

12z GFS shows Jebi striking the central Honshu coast on Tuesday around 10-12z (late evening Japanese time) with central pressures remaining sub-920 mb. Looks very similar to Katrina on these maps. The current landfall zone is south of Osaka placing Nagoya and Chita in the forward sector but Osaka and Kyoto very close to the fast-moving eye as it swerves northeast. I've been advising travelling friends who at this point are booked into hotel in Kyoto 1st to 4th but main point being this could shift either way so at this point just as safe to be there as Tokyo or far western Honshu. The models have been fairly consistent for days although speeding up the landfall, with respect to central Honshu as the target. Could be a high impact storm for any of these large cities or even Tokyo especially if track shifts east at all. On this track looks like Tokyo would see cat-1 conditions while Nagoya and Chita could see as high as cat-4. You also have to wonder if a significant earthquake would be imminent given these approaching tidal stresses.

You people throw some mighty fine snow parties. I had two weeks like you're having now, back around end of December and into New Years. That snow is still in my back yard today despite the past five days being sunny and around 40-45 F.

Seems like a movie in the making ... SNOW WARS Long long ago in a snowstorm far away different measurement techniques came into conflict "Luke, where is your snowboard?"

He tried to jump but missed the window wide right.