FXWX

15 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

We need Miller As back again

The good old days when sharp digging northern stream short waves would dive deep into the southern states, phase some southern stream energy and the go boom on the NC coast before heading toward the benchmark!  These days you have to flip through the Kocin books to get a sense of how nice they were!

Just now, FXWX said:

It never does... recovery from AN periods are almost rushed on the modeling; sometimes by a week or two.  As good as Jan 2015 trended, it also was slower than expected...

Correction "almost always rushed"

4 hours ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Yea. I mentioned I hate seeing the deep troughs establishing itself in the Northeast Pac /gulf of AK. That’s a hostile look for sne and would require some Atl assistance which doesn’t look like the case. It’s gonna get ugly for a bit and I don’t think it recovers as quickly as guidance may start showing. 

It never does... recovery from AN periods are almost rushed on the modeling; sometimes by a week or two.  As good as Jan 2015 trended, it also was slower than expected...

4 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

That encouraged me to go out and measure just as sleet started. .8 here with the temp at 27.5°.

Closing in on 2" here... 29 F

23 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

i could see a weaker vort that drags the baroclinic zone south and brings in a better airmass before a larger system on the 21-22. not sure if that would be considered two storms, per se  

I thought the same thing; back in the "good old days" having that type of scenario playout was not uncommon.  Not so much in recent winters...

25 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

There's definitely potential with that look. But you know as well as anyone that the smallest thing can always screw up east coast cyclogenesis. 

Certainly easy to screw up, but I would like to play with that pattern a few times this winter.  It will be interesting to see if the recent winter trend of shredding energy to pieces rears it's ugly head, or if we can finally get a coherent sw to swing into the mean trough and generate a viable stc low tracking under SNE.  I know Tip has correctly harped about the speed issue for the past few winters?  This setup could be the first test of this winter??? The look is a tease for now...

3 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

NO!  THIS IS TRUE.  You set yourself up for let downs all the time with these.  This shifted east, so it failed here.  Sometimes it’s the inversion.  Either way(LLJ shifting away? Or the inversion?) they fail more than they don’t.  And you buy in every time. 

Yep... most under-perform.  But you have to monitor and alert everyone to the threat because MOST does not mean ALL.  And that is where communication comes in...  

24 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Wow. Had to be 60 whole house shook. 

You deserve it... Too bad you were videoing on your phone at the moment!  It would have made a great Xmas present for Kevin...

70 mph gusts at Conimicut Light... often the highest winds in RI area...

Likely an under-performer (at least for CT)... Regardless, you still have to be wary of these setups and just not dismiss their potential because of past failures.  It does bother me that so many posters love to bash the NWS, and others, when these types of events fail.  They always carry a high degree of uncertainty, and at least in the private sector, those uncertainties are conveyed to the client.  But the client and in the case of the NWS, the public, have to be made aware of the high-end risk, were the setup to verify.  Just dismissing a potential disruptive wind event because they may have failed in the past is not the answer.  Just like a snow forecast, if the biggest numbers in the range don't verify, the public thinks it was a failed forecast.  I don't have time to read every AFD, but the I did note confidence levels were discussed and as one might expect there was concern about error potential.  Like the NWS snow forecast graphics that state low-end amounts, expected amounts and then high-end amount, I usually state the possible range of max wind gusts to my clients during conference calls...   Many want to know what the high-end risk levels are, even though they will mostly make decisions using the most likely gusts values.  I think it is also imperative to note to the public that most damaging wind events in SNE are scattered events; rarely are they widespread.  You can have a few trees smash into houses across the state or a car or two get crushed, but that is still only a "scattered" event.  The problem is there is no way to forecast the specific town or street that will be impacted.  So, we end up with a generic forecast that implies widespread issues but is almost never widespread.  As Wiz chatted about earlier, there is a lot of communication issues in play, and nowcast trends need to be posted on a regular basis to keep the general public up to speed as you move into the threat period.   Folks on this forum are constantly monitoring the trends and can often see where things are heading.  But the vast majority of the public does not have the time or ability to assess weather data trends.   I know the NWS is overwhelmed on days like this, but a county-by-county storm trends update product (short and concise; ex. wind threat decreasing for county X, or wind threat still high for county Y) that could scroll across the bottom of the tv set or be read by any radio announcer to allow the latest trends to be heard by the public would be great. 

Today we thought if we warmed into the 60's, we would be in trouble... But not the case this time around given the eastward trend of the lvl jet.

48 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Where did you grab that?

That's the NWS GIS Viewer page... when it first loads for the first time it will show the world... Zoom into the region you want to view, change the background to your preference.  Open up layers and go to "real time observations" and click on it.  From there you have a ton of options to display, and when you open it back up it will remember your area of interest and what you last viewed.  I keep one page bookmarked with the Metars (you can chose any or all of the parameters)  Put it in station model display and pick parameters and networks for the data.  Below is my metar display using NWS/FAA sites, weather, temp, wind and gusts.  The earlier graphic I posted I had limited the display to gusts, but chose all networks, not just metars.  Lots of layers to pick from and I use it as my primary metar display, as well as my gust display.  Once you get a display you like it will remember it, or you can bookmark it.  Auto updates every 1 to 5 minutes.

Current wind strongest gusts focused on southeastern CT on across southeastern Mass & Cape...

26 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Where’s all this wind?  Need something to mix this cold crap out of here. 

59 here; but almost no wind... wind trends appear to be focusing on far eastern and/southeastern CT more and more, along with southeast Mass, RI and the Cape.  Given trends would not be shocked if only eastern CT gust to 50 mph with the vast majority of the western and central CT staying in the 40 to 45 mph range.   Always a nowcast at this stage of the game, but trends certainly are less impressive for much of central & western CT... Euro has bailed and HRRR has been adamant about this being an eastern CT eastward threat.

55 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Great input. 

This is great information and I think to the bolded...this is leading to a huge question in all of this, are people making decisions based on fear on any fallout should something happen or are people making sound, educated decisions based on the information provided? It seems too me at least, the trend has been to make these decisions based on fear of fallout versus anything else. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? 

For sure there is fear; with both sides of the issue... under-react and or over-react!  I do wish the NWS would use more terms like "scattered" or isolated" and not just statements that give the impression the damaging winds will be widespread.  I try to use qualifying words about the coverage of the disruptive or damaging impacts so folks can get a sense of how widespread or not widespread it will be, which they then can incorporate into their decisions. 

17 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I mean if there is a trend to start closing schools or dismiss school early for weather events, pretty soon nobody will be in school. If we're talking about the potential for a serious, life threatening event, then absolutely, close schools. I guess maybe it's hard to fully blame those making these decisions...they're making decisions based on what they're being presented and weather is flat out hyped. 

The other thing too with early dismissals is they're pointless. Just cancel the day. I remember in school when we were having an early dismissal, nobody was paying attention. Classes were shortened, teachers had to rush to get through material...nobody is winning in those situations. It's a disservice to the teachers and its a disservice to the students. 

I can't speak on the remote learning since I have zero experience with it (unless you want to count online classes  ) but I feel like you have to be extremely disciplined to handle remote learning and how many middle/high school students fit that boat?

My 2-cents, since I deal with about 100 school districts here in CT... there is no consensus on what to do on days like this... A multitude of folks are involved with the decision... In some towns, the issuance of a Warning or Advisory is sufficient to cause a delay, early D or outright cancellation.   Wind and flash flood events, given their highly variable nature in terms of impacts at anyone location, the decision is compounded by the fact that most of the time only a few streets are impacted, but those that could produce deadly results.  Most schools will not dismiss early today, but all of them have been assessing the issue, and getting feedback from local emergency managers, police and DPW personnel.  Some folks are just too uncomfortable with a worse case outcome and will dismiss early.  But even that is an issue.  Most bus runs take 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete... trying to time when a tree might fall is impossible.  The bottom line is that these decisions are not just made willy nilly...  Input comes from multiple sources and the final decision is made with those inputs in mind.  We had a rotten tree bring down wires yesterday in an eastern CT district.  Not weather related, but people still complained about it!  I have been on conference calls and email chains for a few days now, and trust me people are trying to do the best they can knowing full well the inherent complicated nature of disruptive / dangerous weather events...

43 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Well closest is just over 2 miles to my north. 

But with this wind direction it won’t matter. Wind will be from like 170 or so. I find these events to be better just inland from south coast. My guess is ern Plymouth county will rip as this looks to get a boost in the LLJ as it traverses that area. We may get clipped with that. I know it’s the wind clown map, but 3K nam shows that. 

Ok... Agree with eastern Plymouth county thoughts.  While many of the modeled maps are clownish, I think you are in a good spot to rip 55 to 60 mph just overhead; whether or not it will get to ground level is always the challenge. The the forecasted warming of the sfc & boundary layers certainly won't hurt!!! Probably will be able to hear the LLJ ripping by a few hundred feet overhead.  Meanwhile folks with anemometers on a 10 ft pole attached to their deck will complain they never busted 25 mph.  

51 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

3K is violent.

As the crow flies, how far are you from the water?

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You like to party, I like to party , we like to party 

I think so... At ~1,200', I expect to roar... Even better no trees near my property!!!

29 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

how’s it look John for us inland peeps here in CT. 

I think lowest of elevations 40-45 mph, 500 to 1,000' 45-50 (low grade risk 50+); 1,000+ ft 50+ mph; coastal plain (especially eastern) 60+.   

Just getting back to work, and it appears the Euro has joined the wind party...  

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

EPS has a signal for Dec 21-22…it’s weak but it’s definitely there. Can’t really say much more when you are 11-12 days out. So much can change even in the longwave pattern. 

No clue what any storm would look like yet, but do like the fact that we continue to see signals for an active pattern during the last 7 to 10 days of the month... Maybe we ended with just rain across SNE, but potential is there for a colder setup compared to what we have seen during recent past holiday periods has me intrigued...  Like many recent years, we likely won't be dealing with a long duration cold pattern anytime soon, but there will be windows for some "well-timed" events, if luck is on our side?

2 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

A couple of more days to solidify something 280 hours out. WTF. This field is getting stupid now.

I wish it was just stupidity... Unfortunately it's designed deceit!!!

52 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Beautiful picture John. 

Thanks Wolfie?  Love the location... 1,200' elevation, few hundred feet from Litchfield cty border... Do you teach in Southington?

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It has been nice the last few days to actually have winter in winter . I know this will all be wiped out this upcoming week, but it definitely was nice while we had it . Looking out at a snowy landscape in December is not something we’ve had in awhile. Probably pre that huge snow eraser Grinch storm 3-4 yrs ago . 

 Certainly a great wintery feel & look!

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Forecast for this AM was good across the lower elevations, where most of us live, however, it was pretty dreadful across the higher terrain. This was due to the fact that a slightly more intense storm and further south track relative to expectation turned the anticipated, marginal, light snow event into a heavy, damaging snowfall of over 6" in some areas.

Final Grade: D

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/.../poorly...

Looks to warm up next week, so an opportunity for forecast redemption is not imminent. However, the weather pattern does look to try to grow more festive between the holidays and especially after the New Year.

rly made a significant difference across the higher elevations.

 

Nevermind it was sitting right there all the time....  Don't know how my aging eyes missed it...