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Lee's Remnants and the Mid-Atlantic


WxUSAF

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Thought you might enjoy a close-up of the HPC qpf forecast for the next 72 hours and 120 hours starting 8am this morning.

Great stuff! Post things like that more often.

I've tried a few comparisons between AccuWeather, NWS, and Weather.com, and haven't seen a lot to choose from. I will grant you that Accuweather's 15-day forecasts can be pretty funny, when on Day 1, they predict, say a high of 70 with a 10% chance of rain; and then on Day 2, revise that to a high of 60 with a 70% chance of rain. Still, a detailed study would be needed to do a proper comparison. When a service has a spectacular success or failure -- particularly with regard to snow -- that tends to be remembered, whereas less spectacular results tend to be quickly forgotten.

I don't know of any rigorous studies between the 3, although I know Accuwx claims to be better (shock!). But, there have been several studies comparing straight model run forecasts to those with human input. The human input forecasts consistently outperform model forecasts through the first 7-10 days. After that, it's about a toss up. Perhaps another red-tagger who regularly reads the meteorological journals could provide a specific reference to one such study. The forecast you get on Accuwx.com is 100% model derived (and same with weather.com) as far as I know. The NWS forecast has human input, so I'd always put more value in it.

I typically read the FD's, look at the zone, and fill in blanks with what I think will happen. Hard to go wrong when reading the NWS FD's and looking at your zone. The best part of the discussions is the analysis of the features when it is a low confidence forecast. It gives armchair guys like me a chance to make my own analysis and see what happens.

Good post.

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Thought you might enjoy a close-up of the HPC qpf forecast for the next 72 hours and 120 hours starting 8am this morning.

Nice maps but seems the bullseye is way off. The same train as last night over MoCo, Howard, Carroll, and areas west of the Bay seem to have set up in that area again today. It shows well on the storm totals map.

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Problem with HPC maps in a convective event is they will be wrong.

I think if you had high-density accurate observations and then smoothed the totals with nearby stations, you'd end up getting something that would look much like a HPC map. Especially since today (at least) it's more like embedded convection, so you don't have locations with 0" and nearby locations with several inches.

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I think if you had high-density accurate observations and then smoothed the totals with nearby stations, you'd end up getting something that would look much like a HPC map. Especially since today (at least) it's more like embedded convection, so you don't have locations with 0" and nearby locations with several inches.

I guess tho so far the pattern doesn't match as we keep getting convective blobs rotating through. I think our knowledge of where those track is pretty poor beforehand. Of course you can make educated guesses based on fronts and track etc. It's just not going to be ass accurate as say it was with Irene or a nor'easter. But yes moreso than a day with pop up storms.

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Just did a screenshot clip of storm totals from CCX and LWX. The HPC maps definitely have issues with convective events, just compare the HPC maps to the latest 15-hour HRRR maps and the banding nature is very clear. I am from Cumberland county up by Harrisburg and for our county alone the HPC totals range from 4 to 7 inches. CTP has been very clear in there AFD about not being sure where the heavy axis of precipitation will set-up this event, especially with areas that see training convection. Here are the current radar estimates, enjoy.

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post-4667-0-00408800-1315331931.jpg

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Just did a screenshot clip of storm totals from CCX and LWX. The HPC maps definitely have issues with convective events, just compare the HPC maps to the latest 15-hour HRRR maps and the banding nature is very clear. I am from Cumberland county up by Harrisburg and for our county alone the HPC totals range from 4 to 7 inches. CTP has been very clear in there AFD about not being sure where the heavy axis of precipitation will set-up this event, especially with areas that see training convection. Here are the current radar estimates, enjoy.

Interesting that the LWX map shows my area in the 0.30-0.60" shading, while the CCX radar shows correctly the 2.00-2.50" range. The 24-hr lag by LWX on totals is a factor certainly, but even so, I had well over an inch-and-a-half after LWX started the loop yesterday afternoon.

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The maps are good for what they are. I think in most cases a probability map is better tho you can sort of read them the same way (IE, heavier totals more likely in the heavier total area.). They had my current location in Cape Cod at less than .5" for the 5 day period an we about doubled that this am with more inbound.

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Yeah, certainly a probability map would make more sense in a convective event, but I think the public has a hard enough time understanding forecast probabilities as is, rather than compounding probabilities with "30% chance of thunderstorms today with a 25% chance of 1" of rain". That's a big bag of WTF... In a convective event, a forecast range would make more sense, IMO. I think the synoptic maps are fine as is for stratiform precip. Still even then you get lollipops, that's just the crap chute that is weather.

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Yeah, certainly a probability map would make more sense in a convective event, but I think the public has a hard enough time understanding forecast probabilities as is, rather than compounding probabilities with "30% chance of thunderstorms today with a 25% chance of 1" of rain". That's a big bag of WTF... In a convective event, a forecast range would make more sense, IMO. I think the synoptic maps are fine as is for stratiform precip. Still even then you get lollipops, that's just the crap chute that is weather.

i give it 2, was close to a 3 but due to region posts, i rounded down

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