bboughton

I don’t really comment on here often but I do once in a while. Watching the coverage of this storm has been fantastic. But I also realized from the title and digging through the forum that James passed in April, and although I didn’t know him (or anyone else on here) in person, I wanted to let you all know that I’m so sorry for the friend so many of you lost and I am glad that this wild storm is dedicated to him. 

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I just looked, this isn't as bad as people made it sound...certainly no blizzard for most, but...

Wind forecasts down too? 

14 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

In principle I agree.  They "seem" ( I do not intend to impugn NWS with this statement ) to be weighting conservatively; I have not read their AFD so won't speculate on there philosophy for doing so.

Given that the NWS’s primary goal is public safety, there isn’t much of a downside effect of saying it’ll be 18” versus 30” because the impacts will be similar. Also, the lay person is really bad at estimating snow totals, and tend to look at snow depth rather than snowfall. 
 

And although the ship has sailed to some degree, every time they *over*estimate snowfall it undermines confidence in the NWS forecast because the major storm was a “dud.” 
 

Those seem like the incentives to me. They’d probably have to be incredibly confident to call for 24+

2 minutes ago, bboughton said:

I've decided I'm getting between 0-10". The public would be totally satisfied with that forecast, right? Right? 

PNC basically has me between 3.5-11" so I'm not far off. 

I've decided I'm getting between 0-10". The public would be totally satisfied with that forecast, right? Right? 

Been pretty much all very wet snow so far except for a brief rain changeover. Still have no idea what to expect tomorrow night. 

Left a bar in Cambridge at around 10, got back to Brookline (Cleveland Circle area) at 11. It’s a winter wonderland out there. Definitely a few inches on the ground. Wet snow, sticking to everything and rapidly accumulating. Roads didn’t seem to be treated much — pretty decent accumulation on the pavement but not many people driving. 

For some reason folks seemed totally surprised by this but I got a nor’easter alert on my phone from the Globe days ago. I’ve thought the forecasts were a bit low based on how folks were talking on here, but I’m surprised to see how unprepared folks were. 

What do people make of this postmortem? http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-meteorologists-botched-the-blizzard-of-2015/

So how's the NAM?

So, EURO vs. USA?

What's it look like for NYC? 

The suspense is killing me. 

Really want to wait up for the Euro. Really should sleep. Law school semester starts again tomorrow, and tomorrow night is not going to be a sleep night.

I just made a pot of coffee. 

I've been in the 24" spot in every map except Wankum's that I've seen tonight. 

Link to Harvey's map?

Lol Ray BED 34.8 IJD 34.8 ORH 37.1 yea no

Is this really what the GFS showed? 

Actually NWS and some TV mets forecasted it quite well but some prominent OCMs pooh poohed it.

Maybe CT mets did less good? She was living in New Haven or North Haven at the time. 

My mom always told me that showers were forecast and they got feet. 

So I tried to post but couldn't.  

 

So I'll try again.

 

The impact of 78 was largely due to a skeptical public refusing to believe the forecasts.  Then when the start of the snow was delayed, they figured it wasn't happening.   So lots of folks got caught on the roads.  I can't ever see that happening today.

There's like 3 threads for this now. Why couldn't we keep the old thread?