Roger Smith

Posting a notice in all regional forums -- 2019 hurricane (all named tropical storms) seasonal forecast contest open in tropical headquarters forum. https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/52312-2019-hurricane-all-named-tropical-storms-forecast-contest/

https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/52312-2019-hurricane-all-named-tropical-storms-forecast-contest/ 2019 tropical season forecast contest thread open.

What kind of North Atlantic tropical cyclone season do you predict for 2019? Our annual contest asks you to predict the total number of storms, and break it down by months. As you know, the "count" is total number of named storms, then total number of those that become hurricanes, and finally total number of hurricanes that become major (cat-3 or stronger). In 2017 the final count was 17/10/6 and our contest winner was Rockchalk83. In 2018 the final count was 15/8/2 and the contest winner was "A few Universes below normal" closely followed by UIWWildThing. Also in 2018, contest normal and the NHC mid-range forecast scored higher than any contest entrants. The rules are fairly simple. You need to post a seasonal total by the deadline which I am setting as June 1st but this could be extended a few days to increase the participation as long as no new named storms appear in early June. Your seasonal total should include any developments in May, and just as I thought of starting the contest, STS Andrea has appeared. The current forecasts for that cap it at 35 knots, so the count is already 1 0 0 for May. If there is further activity in May, that will be counted in the seasonal total too. But you don't have to predict anything for May, just add 1 0 0 for May in your forecast line. Your seasonal total will be adjusted if the monthly totals for your forecast when added up match your seasonal total but the 1 0 0 May portion changes. Contest normal will also change as that is based on the assumption that the 1989-2018 average used to create it applies to the defined season (this May activity is assumed to be extra to the normal values although May activity is becoming a fairly common occurrence recently). In 2017, all entrants gave monthly predictions and almost all left them unedited, but the contest rules allow you to submit these up to 06z of the first of each month, or to revise those already submitted by that deadline. Note, there is no requirement for your monthly numbers to add up to your seasonal numbers and you can use decimal points to express uncertainty. In 2018, one entrant (the eventual contest winner) submitted only a seasonal forecast. When that happens, I take a scaled version of contest normal that adds up to the entrant's seasonal totals. Those were fairly similar in that case so the entrant was playing off the contest normal basically, reduced by one IIRC. I am going to post my forecast mostly as a guide to how your forecast should appear (not the numbers but the format) ... Roger Smith ____ 18 12 4 ____ (May) 1 0 0 _ (Jun) 1 1 0 _ (Jul) 1 1 0 __ (Aug) 4 3 1 __ (Sep) 6 4 2 __ (Oct) 4 3 1 __ (Nov-Dec) 1 0 0 (this assumes a result of 1 0 0 May, would be adjusted to 19 12 4 if 2 0 0 or 19 13 4 if 2 1 0) The following are contest normals (adjusted for the May 1 0 0 ) and the current (amended June 5th when one storm and one hurricane added to April forecast) CSU and NHC mid-range forecasts below them. Note that the monthly forecasts for these are scaled down versions of the contest normals, they are not actual forecasts, only seasonal totals were predicted. This is for contest scoring comparisons. I am also going to track NHC high end of range as I suspect that may do better than their mid-range. I am not totally sure if their forecasts include the May activity or are meant to apply to June to November only, so having the high end forecast in play will perhaps cover that ambiguity. Contest Normal __16 8 3 ____ (May) 1 0 0 __ (Jun) 1 0 0 _ (Jul) 1 0 0 _ (Aug) 4 2 1 __ (Sep) 6 4 1 __ (Oct) 3 2 1 _ (Nov-Dec) 0 0 0 NHC (midrange) _ 12 6 3 ____ (May) 1 0 0 __ (Jun) 1 0 0 _ (Jul) 1 0 0 _ (Aug) 3 2 1 __ (Sep) 4 3 1 __ (Oct) 2 1 1 _ (Nov-Dec) 0 0 0 NHC (high end) __15 8 4 ____ (May) 1 0 0 __ (Jun) 1 0 0 _ (Jul) 1 0 0 _ (Aug) 4 2 1 __ (Sep) 5 4 2 __ (Oct) 3 2 1 _ (Nov-Dec) 0 0 0 CSU (Junel fcst) __13 6 2 ____ (May) 1 0 0 __ (Jun) 1 0 0 _ (Jul) 1 0 0 _ (Aug) 3 2 1 __ (Sep) 5 3 1 __ (Oct) 2 1 0 _ (Nov-Dec) 0 0 0 Scoring for the contest is as follows: 50% of the score is based on the seasonal. You start with 50 points and in each category, you lose half of (1 point per error plus that number squared). Example, you predict 16 storms, the actual is 19, your error is (3 + 3 squared)/2 = 12/2 = 6. If you had similar errors for hurricanes and majors, your total score would then be 32/50. The other 50% of the score is based on your monthly forecasts starting with June and ending with Nov-Dec. These are worth 4, 6, 12, 16, 10 and 2 points in order from June to Nov-Dec. Then the errors reduce your possible score in the same way as the seasonal formula, except that June, July and Nov-Dec go with half the reductions (in other words, you lose points at half the rate of the other more active months). In the past few years, highest scores in the contest have been close to 90 (dropping to 84 last year) and seasonal scores of 48 to 50 have been achieved. A good monthly set has earned scores totalling 41-43 points. Good luck if you enter. The deadline will be made more precise around June 1st and all entrants can edit up to the eventual deadline without notice, you can assume that I won't be copying down or storing any forecasts until a firm deadline is posted in the thread and up to that firm deadline, so no need to post new numbers, just edit the old ones. Once a table of entries appears, your numbers are set for the seasonal and June portions but you have the option of posting revised monthly numbers at any point during the contest before monthly deadlines. Late monthly revisions will be penalized at a rate of 10% per day but will not be valid after any named storm is declared in the month.

I assume May 20 is the first high risk? If so, congrats to rolltide_130 who said May 24, and OKstorm with May 4. Third closest was freshgeek at April 30th. All other guesses were mostly in April, one was for late March and a few said no high risk. Minnesota_storms had April 26th but added EF5 for May 23rd (remains to be seen later today?). My remaining chance at success in this thread rests on the above consensus seasonal total (which was not quite the highest one offered). I don't know how that's going.

Just for interest, these are the all-time record highs at the four main airport locations (or nearby for older records): BWI _ 107 on July 10, 1936 DCA _ 106 on July 20, 1930 and Aug 6, 1918 IAD _ 105 on July 22, 2011 (shorter period of record does not overlap the dates above) RIC _ 107 on Aug 6, 1918 (Interesting that Toronto has the same dates for its July and August records, 105 on 8th to 10th July 1936 and 102 on 7th of Aug 1918 ... the records shown above were almost matched on August 7, 1918). (and yes I think my forecast of very hot summer temperatures will extend as far north as NYC including PA -- I will edit my numbers down by 1 deg after seeing these stats).

Ah good to see this is happening. I foresee a very hot summer developing and perhaps some near-record temperatures. (edit down 1 deg after checking all-time records) BWI 107 DCA 106 IAD 105 RIC 108 HGR 104

The severe outbreak is more good than bad for snow later, it shows the system is rapidly deepening and so that should pull in colder air faster, some places that have flipped from snow to rain could go back to snow after 7 pm. Not much hope for anywhere southeast of I-95 but between there and current snowfall, could change back.

Low is currently just northwest of Augusta GA and heading east-north-east, should be near ORF by midnight. Some hope therefore of a phase change back to snow for some now getting rain, darkness and better access to colder air filtering into w PA should both be helpful factors. This could have been quite a heavy snowfall for the airports if colder high pressure had been in place ahead of the low, but could have a fairly good outcome anyway for some. Heavy thunderstorms likely for anyone south of an EZF to OCE line tonight, 1-2" rainfalls likely in s.e. VA.

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.

I suspect we will have a very active season with at least one major outbreak. Predicting 1520 tornados. First max risk will be around April 9-10.

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.

With this appearance, storm should have been Feb 14th perhaps ..

Strong pressure falls at 44008 (54 se ACK) to 975.7 mb at 1250z ... estimate center 965 mb at 39.5 N 68.8 W, appears to be phasing with upper low. This will soon overcome the slight warmth left in boundary layer near sea level and become a raging blizzard (where it is not already) in e MA and some parts of RI, e CT. Air temp only 34 F out in Mass Bay over 39 F water, likely to stabilize at about 31/31 at KBOS, S to S+ depending on banding location. Enjoy.