jm1220

I saw the anvil and lightning about an hour ago.  The broken line is approaching Hearne.

 

Not like there isn't plenty of moist, disgusting air to be tapped here in Austin. Looks like CAPE should be sufficient for storms here, but the line's crawling south. I guess we'll see what happens. There's been zero rain where I am in about two weeks, and the ground's already looking parched with the daily 100 degree heat we've been having. Hopefully this doesn't turn into another severe flash drought like last summer which resulted in wildfires by early fall. 

Good line of storms look to be headed south from Lampasas-Waco. Hopefully they make it here, can't believe I'm saying it but we could use the rain!!

I'm new to the San Antonio area. Recently transplanted from Detroit, MI. Gotta say I was unprepared for the heat and lack of interesting weather so far since I've been here. Didnt rain once since I arrived 6/5/16. Interesting to say the least. 

 

Anyway, I look forward to posting in here when it does become more active. 

Too bad you didn't move in the spring-San Antonio had some massive hail events this year. 

Get used to generally boring but very hot weather through September. We're just about to wrap up month 1 of constant 90+ highs in Austin. Now it's on to 95-100 every day, with humidity making for heat indices of 105+ every day. At this rate, in a few weeks we'll be at the 100+ daily highs phase. So far this summer looks like it will be hotter than last summer.

Heaviest rain since mid-June at my place now. Good to finally see some water coming into the ground again. The landscape here is brown and yellow as can be after the last two and a half months of almost total dryness.

Barton Creek's station jumped from almost nothing to 0.53" in 20 minutes. After the massive flooding in May/June on almost all the area creeks, they're about dry as a bone now. Barely a trickle.

What are temperatures like in January and February?

First 100 today here in Austin. It still feels like a furnace outside, at 5pm it was brutal. 

In Jan and Feb, average highs go from the low 60s to mid 70s, but it can get below freezing on a decent number of nights, and we can also have highs into the 80s under the right pattern. On average, there's maybe one or two winter weather events of some type where there's some sleet or freezing rain. Dallas isn't too far away and they have one or two more significant winter events per year. 

You guys got a late start on 90s with the wet May and early June pattern. I imagine it's pretty much a given that every day in July and August hits 90F.

So far about 45 90F and over days in Austin. On average there's about 110 per year. Still hasn't hit 100-today might be the day, currently 99 and we've had some late highs recently.

GFS/NAM are focused on a big time soaking for south central TX-one big round late Sat into Sun, then another Monday night. We have a lot more capacity for excess rain than N TX/OK, but 6"+ rain over this period would still cause some major problems and flash floods on the creeks that flow through much of Austin. There's also a severe risk with the late Saturday/Sun event due to the trough digging pretty far south and the potential for supercells/tornadoes if there can be any clearing during the day tomorrow.

Euro caves to the GFS, not as dry, but a massive cave.

Biggest bust I've ever seen from it. Unthinkable a few years ago that the euro would do that.

 

Upton cut totals, they had no choice.

The heavy snow is struggling to get to the Hudson River. If anything they didn't cut back enough. Luckily NYC saw 5" from the initial bands this morning/afternoon, so 12-15" is still doable. A big snow event for sure, but nothing historic or crippling like was thrown around yesterday. Upton isn't going to come out good either, throwing out 24"+ totals was a very ballsy move by them and it's going to bite them when NYC might come in with half of those predictions. And Philly might come in with a minor nuisance event when this morning 12" was predicted. Big time bust from NYC west and south. 

Because both low positions are too far east for a blizzard in NYC. 

No they're not. The classic track for a NYC snow event is just west of the B/M and 75 miles SE of Montauk. The problem is what it usually is for redeveloper Miller B's there-a too slow evolution aloft and consolidation of the low. 

Thanks.   Whatever the RGEM is doing - it happens in the next 2-3 hours.  It is tucking everything nicely and I believe as the radar and WV show right now through about 7-8z...and then it just loses it and becomes progressive.

The RGEM was too far east even initially-good snow really was never supposed to make it past Islip and it's now entering NYC and still going. To me the storm still looks very potent aloft and should at least slow significantly for a while. I'm becoming more cautiously optimistic that NYC shares in some of the high totals, as does W CT/MA. Maybe even NE NJ but the band's progress is really slowing now.

It's not anything I picked out from watching the last few days (other than the first jump it made occurred right in that 42 hour ish window where it seems to start).   If I hadn't suffered through those two non-events that only James and I cared about anyway...I wouldn't have been as persistent.   I really do believe late today and tonight it was really obvious the Euro may have been in error.  And the WV right now has me even spooked for "historic" here as it could well be winding down at lunch tomorrow.

 

I can't justify tossing the RGEM....the epic duration of this one is in doubt.

Yeh, people seem to forget that the AO/NAO aren't in a good spot for a stalled out storm for days and the pattern is progressive overall.

above my pay grade...but I think there's something with the new version of the Euro that just can't get the physics down on where these things are going to stall.  It's the same bias every single time and I've only noted it since the last big upgrade.  Same direction, multi-run starting at about 42-48 hours from the event whether it picks up the event  at 120 hours or 72...same drill.  Meanwhile RGEM seems to actually do fairly well at least this last 15 months being more progressive.  The others seem to offer no real consistency at all, and the GFS is ALWAYS most east.

 

 

 

Meanwhile 0z RGEM definitely east of the 12z early.  

You're a lot better at picking up on these little nuances than I am, which is why I definitely keep tuned to your posts, and you called the Euro as being overdone right away and it looks very much like you'll be right. I still regard the Euro quite highly but it definitely punked lots of people west of NYC. 

I'm done with models at this point-right now it's all about the obs and radar, which IMO look good at least to NYC and the NJ shore. Hopefully the band coming out of Suffolk County can sit over those guys and pivot for a while. I feel bad for those who get stuck west of that-amounts might be 1/3 of what occurs in that western band. That's always a doozy.

 see below

 

 

Yes but that's a given.  It's not like it fit anywhere into the later capture ideas that are playing out for 2 days.  I mean it was instantly tossed.  This run is fine aside of the fact it is likely too slow to exit the low (IE the error/bias may still exist and this could still displace ENE at h 12 and h18 at which point it gets away from the best mechanism to make this a top 2 or 3 aka the RGEM etc.  Probably not because it seems like once the lows actually bomb out models are okay.

 

But I was speaking specifically of what it showed which was the blizzard everyone was anticipating.

 

NYC folks shouldn't be jumping off anything yet....best snows may be right on that edge but holy crap it's a tight w to e near the city and if any shifts were to continue ...I think the chance the 12z Euro scored a coup are about zero though, it appears it just didn't see some of the pieces somehow that helped get everything a bit further NE before the turn.  I mean...we're talking maybe 20 or 40 miles SW to NE....we're asking a lot to expect in this dynamic a situation any model will nail it.  Some of the issue may be that the band about to rotate into NYC is super intense...and as someone was just joking where it stops - the people to the left of it will be swinging from the rafters in the AM and probably end up even below the conservative forecasts while people just to the east get what was forecast or even more.

These storms are always a nailbiter for NYC-Boxing Day was really the exception and wasn't even a classic Miller B like this one. 2/8/13 closed off and bombed just a hair too late and blew up over Long Island. 12/30/00 nailed everyone but rained on Long Island. This one I still have a good feeling about-the bands still have good momentum west and are already coming into E NJ. Nassau and Suffolk Counties are still in a very good spot. Obviously you guys are mostly laughing about all this but for Upton and Mt. Holly it's a hair-puller since these 40 mile differences impact perhaps millions of people. Philly I think is in big trouble for anything more than 4-6" at this point-Mt. Holly had them at 10-14" on the maps. 

This is how Miller B's that blow up from clippers always behave, notwithstanding exceptions like 12/30/00 and Feb 1978, but some probably bit too hard from NYC to PHL. 

I was joking when I said Newark may see 8 inches and JFK 20 but it may be close to that.

I'd laugh so much if this is the one storm to give southern Nassau 2 feet but Central Park half that. 

Horrible run-to-run consistency. Every run crushes CT/S NH/MA/RI, but those on the edge are getting flip flopped between 2ft and 6-10".

NYC already has up to 6" from earlier today, so another 12" would bring some to 18" by itself, and that's doable with 12-1 ratios and 1" liquid. Obviously anywhere east of there is still in for a crushing regardless. 

What am I missing on the NAM being horrible?

 

It was wildly inconsistent from last run and has many in the NYC area jumping off bridges. Jeez...

It's times like this I'm almost glad I'm so far away from it all now (reverse psychology )

Yeah, just all around a sweet look on them from 500mb to the SLP.  Snow Probs are thru the roof.

I always thought last night was unrealistically small on snow for NYC with the upper air features developing where they were. A closed off 500mb low over ACY is just about the best calling card there is for a big time NYC snow event. Models were favoring the heavy convection too much and jumping the center east. 

Took a look at the mid levels. Stuff by NYC just exploded when 5h closes off.

That's why it's hard for me to believe models like the GFS and NAM when they close off at 500mb over NJ/DE, and NYC gets just light-mod snow. They underestimate the western limits of the snow/precip shield regularly. 

It might not be as extreme in NYC as the Euro shows, but I'd weight that a lot more than those models.

It's forming a little later, a little further ese than the 18z, rides up towards the Cape from a position a bit further ESE (36/39 vs 42/45 18z) it's most obvious.  Same theme as the other two.   But as a consequence of finally catching on, the capture occurs faster, and by 42-54 it's much further SW on the stall than earlier runs (not the same but in the area of the others now) and it's a much bigger hit in Eastern New England.

 

If anything all three models in argue for a much more severe hit in eastern New England.  I'm not excluding the other areas, just not commenting as it's not my area.

 

0z GFS just pounds everything from Worcester east.

From hr 18 to hr 24 the low goes almost due east despite the trough negatively tilting? I find that somewhat farfetched. I still think the model is overdeveloping the low near deep convection. The GFS has also been too far east consistently this winter. 

I need to go roofie myself to calm down...not sure why I'm so amped up it's still 24 hours away ...maybe about to drop dead?

 

I want to make one point to you John (Typhoon).   I was a convective feedback junkie in the olds days before they largely stomped out those issues with model fixes.  In the last few years it seems like it's tossed out there whenever we see things we cannot quite explain or have a model outlier that we really want to believe is correct because of common sense, overall model reliability (Euro) etc.

 

But wouldn't convective feedback actually cause the lows to be artificially too far west in this case?  The models that were initially the most west fired convection rapidly right on the coast and actually started to develop a closed low above it all the way up to phantom vorticies at 500mb.  As a result progression was SLOWER...allowing for a further west capture, then the tuck and roll.   Every time I heard the convective feedback stuff today the implication was it would mean the storm should be more west...I'd argue if convective feedback was involved it would have caused an earlier spinnup, faster drop of pressure, an earlier capture/close and subsequently have everything too far west.    

 

^^  Beyond that like I said was down this road when we had similar splits in model camps late last year.  That was my conclusion and I even think Will's after the fact, but I don't remember dates like he does. 

 

We're talking about 4-6 hours difference with that initial NNE to SSW band of showers/storms getting further ENE before the low develops under/near it.  Earlier runs had that spinning up harder, earlier...

 

Those couple of things and the RGEM running the other way when it's usually the model that has me ready to hit a bridge at this point...

 

Again may be totally wrong and it doesn't matter to 90% of the people here, just wanted to point out why I'm so adamant...even if wrong!

 

 

Well, for NYC's sake here's to hoping you're wrong.

Very August 2011 like. Flooding out there must be a disaster, it sure was here on that day. We had over 10 inches of rain in maybe 5 hours.

I was dead-set on a meteorology major at Rutgers, but decided to major in environmental science at Villanova for a number of reasons, a big one being the future job opportunity. Environmental science is a very new major and it has a lot of similarities to meteorology, and I didn't want to veer too far from my interest. Green science, renewable energy sector, air quality, ect are all very interesting subjects and potential careers. So I think you made a good decision for sure minoring in env science; you've got to broaden your horizons and make yourself more marketable. The good thing about environmental science is it's a pretty broad field, and you can then dive into something more specific for your M.S. (which I plan to do). I love weather but I felt it was important to incorporate the practical approach as well, and that's (at least right now), the opportunities are generally greater in the environmental science / renewable energy sector.

That was pretty much the path I took... I was in the Meteo major at Penn State for 2 years, then switched to Energy, Business and Finance, which is also a very broad area of study where you can develop numerous different specialties. Ultimately I want to pursue an M.B.A., preferably in the energy/renewables sectors. Many meteo students at Penn State took the E.B.F. minor (which is called Weather Risk Management or Global Business Strategies) and it helped them greatly in attaining positions at energy and commodities companies which value that kind of background.

Minor in another field such as econ or finance. That will give you a diverse background and make you more marketable to various employers, particularly energy companies.