weatherwiz

Don't models have a difficult time with handling confluence too? I remember some previous storms where confluence was a factor we saw last minute shifts south...and sometimes the south track resulted in suppression...thankfully this is a situation where we wouldn't have to worry about that so confluence may be our friend this time

Agreed. We go through the same nonsense every winter. Sometimes beginning as early as mid-November talk will begin about how the pattern looks "great" around Thanksgiving...then that gets delayed until early December...then it's around Christmas...then it's after Christmas...then it's after the New Year...then it's mid-month...then it's as we move into late month/February...then climo finally takes over and everyone claims win handing out high-fives for calling for the pattern change that took two months to occur. The problem is too many want to verify patterns based on whether they got to use a ruler in their backyard to measure snow...or one model run (ensemble or a weekly or whatever) throws up an H5 pattern that yields pants tents and all of a sudden "the pattern is going to change" b/c that run indicated it's going to happen and everyone starts running with it and once we hit that certain time stamp the signal vanishes as given the NH configuration it was unlikely to begin with. Since fall and through now we have seen highly erratic medium-to-long range pattern consistency within the models (likely as a result of a volatile Pacific with periods of increased MJO activity.

My guess it's b/c the euro has been a bit inconsistent with ULL track and how H5 and subsequent features evolve...the GFS has been a bit more consistent with the evolution/track of the ULL

Exactly!!! A similar pattern configuration, evolution, etc isn't going to produce similar results at the surface and it may not even produce something that is remotely close. There are numerous different solutions which can result from the "same setup"...so when a result happens it was just that one result out of the xxx amount. Too much emphasis is placed on analogs...ESPECIALLY seasonal forecasting

I think analogs are kinda stupid. I totally get the significance of them but I think they're misinterpreted or misunderstood.

The euro has tiny pockets of surface-based CAPE move across the region!!! not surprised given those lapse rates...wish Ryan's page had elevated CAPE but I would think we could be dealing with some weak elevated CAPE...could see elevated convection (especially in the "warm sector").

The progression between 108-120 is extremely odd regarding the ULL...very jumpy. So either a resolution type thing or just major uncertainty regarding where the closed circulation will actually be present...that blimp has major ramifications on the sfc product

Pretty much...this just adds another potential solution to the cards instead of zeroing in on any particular solution...which is still find given the range we're at. The majority of the diversion within the forecast models happen around Thursday or so and it's with how the trough/ridge evolve. Once this aspect is sampled and observed I think we should have a pretty clear idea of what to expect with the only uncertainties surrounding areas which are borderline.

The looks you get from people will be awesome

Could be a quite a bit of convection and convective elements involved...mlvl lapse rates approaching 8 with the mlvl low!!!!!

At least it warms into the mid 60's tomorrow!

That would certainly help with confidence here..obviously could certainly happen as there is still a large spread in wiggle room with this but seeing the GFS and Euro slowly with some ticks south is somewhat of a good sign. If the 12z euro comes in anything like the Ukie that would be a bit more concerning.

I would be extremely shocked if the sfc low ended up that far north

Not true...had to adjust my neck to see the date

Just realized the GFS goes into February...by that logic there is just two more full months to go on the models before we hit May

I would really focus, pay attention to, or even look at BL temps right now.

I agree...not very far off for us. Just want to continue seeing improvements aloft...will deal with thermals as we get closer. but at the end of the day...if we continue to see these improvements aloft thermals won't be of concern

The GFS is an absolute crush job up north...smoked with snow. SOme prolific totals with that

Not sure how much this means for down the road and for us but one thing I've noticed is the NAM (and even Euro) seem to be much stronger with this system as it develops and slowly moves through the Missouri Valley. In fact, both the NAM and Euro are indicating the possibility of a pretty hefty band of snow setting up across parts of MO, IA, and IL. Some definitive differences between the NAM and GFS begin to develop through the day Thursday.

Wind chill advisory for Miami, FL. wind chill there may get into the mid 30's tonight. Pray for them

I was actually just reading about that not long ago. Think it was within one of moduels on MetEd...was quite interesting to read about it.

That's a major problem...verification of 500 should not be that far off at 24-hours out. Is there a seasonal trend too within these graphs? Especially the first one....much more accurate scores up to 120-out during the summer and less accurate in the winter...which makes sense

This is a fantastic post! Obviously a significant aspect to model errors is now everything is initialized...but as you know just b/c an initialization is incorrect doesn't mean the entire model run should be tossed. But from what I've always understood is that the Euro's initialization scheme is far more advanced than ours and that makes a significant advantage in the accuracy of the model. I have thought if sometimes whether the models consider just too much...so in the end you're just including more variables and just relying on the mathematical equations to solve them and by running ensembles you derive numerous different outputs and just look for whatever the clustering is...good idea in sense but perhaps not as great as one would think. I would be interested in the scores but my wager is we've seen so much changes (even with large-scale) inside of 24-36 hours that even short-term forecasting has become rather erratic. Just think of how many storms (going beyond winter weather) have a high level of uncertainty until we're inside of 6-12 hours.

Absolutely... however, (an obviously) with that comes limitations and why of course sometimes ensembles are not always the best way to go...even in the medium range. If the mean is too smoothed then the ensemble may "eliminate" a key feature having significant ramifications of the forecast output.