Ian Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 I have a big enough sample to know I average 125% of DCA's snow.....and it is very very consistent...most I have ever received is 142% of DCA's total dating back to 98-99...so you are only going to get a slight bump in snow given the paltry amounts we often get....temps will be the same, as I also get the insane 77 degree mins in the summer....so in the end, DCA isn't representative of the burbs, but is for the city I'd personally rather have it representative of the city. Most of the "beefs" come to bragging rights in winter etc. I guess since there is a lot of population not downtown but within the Beltway there is some unfortunate underplaying at times.. but a lot of that is still rather trivial in the end. If someone looks outside and sees it snowing with 1" of snow they're not going to worry too much that it's 35 with ra/sn mix at DCA. On another note, nice satellite today. My 7 is verifying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow. Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 I'd personally rather have it representative of the city. Most of the "beefs" come to bragging rights in winter etc. I guess since there is a lot of population not downtown but within the Beltway there is some unfortunate underplaying at times.. but a lot of that is still rather trivial in the end. If someone looks outside and sees it snowing with 1" of snow they're not going to worry too much that it's 35 with ra/sn mix at DCA. On another note, nice satellite today. My 7 is verifying. GOES17312014004PslWSa.jpg yes...def a 7/10 dating back to 98-99 when I moved into the city, I have averaged 17.7" and DCA 14.8"...so more like 120% during that span.....I guess it would make a slight difference in perception but the discrepancy isn't huge...I think the biggest "disappointment" with a city locations would be mins....when DCA is 77 at 4am, I am 76....so the difference isnt meaningful...i say keep it at DCA unless you are going to move it to PG county somewhere like Andrews...of course it isnt going to happen...so we will just continue to complain...mostly about snow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
needbiggerboat Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Biggest issue with DCA is it's not DC....it's Virginia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gymengineer Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 I think people who have watched weather for long enough and have a brain can figure out how to extrapolate based on DCA. Not sure why we always end up having these conversations. If you want a big snow total or a super cold low it's obviously not the place to go but it's still valuable. There are a ton of official locations that suck. The only great answer is probably to double or triple them .. but I guess PWS/wxbug etc are filling in the holes. It's still an interesting topic to me-- particularly snow totals-- because recent developments in other cities *have* changed the official snow climate for that city going forward. Baltimore's new snow totals aren't directly comparable to the inflated BWI totals in the past with the over measuring issue. (I still think it makes no sense to overcompensate and just use the snow depth as the storm total in 2/5-6/10.) Philadelphia's change over to the NJ state park across the river as the official snow site has been yielding higher snow totals than downtown Philly in many more storms than not. Of the KU I-95 cities, Baltimore, Philly, and NYC all have snow reporting sites that will tend to have higher snow totals than the downtown core. DCA and Logan Airport tend to be lower with exceptions. Logan's biggest exception is PDII which set the all-time record total for Boston even though nowhere in the rest of Boston got close to that 27.5" total. I guess all we can say is there's very little consistency in snow records once you move sites or change snow measuring processes. Past observers in all the cities did not follow the 6-hr rule anyway. Top snowstorm lists are pointless and it's a good idea for DC, like Matt does, to analyze DC numbers/snow climate only post-move to DCA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattie g Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Got up to 30. 29.5 now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoda Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 LWX keeps bumping up the temps for Mon night... last night low was forecasted around zero... now its approaching 10. That sucks... I want my 0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Biggest issue with DCA is it's not DC....it's Virginia. It's as little as 3/4 a mile from parts of DC, 2 from the Washington Monument and 4 from the heart of downtown. BWI is like 8 miles from downtown Baltimore but no one ever complains about BWI for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow. Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 It's still an interesting topic to me-- particularly snow totals-- because recent developments in other cities *have* changed the official snow climate for that city going forward. Baltimore's new snow totals aren't directly comparable to the inflated BWI totals in the past with the over measuring issue. (I still think it makes no sense to overcompensate and just use the snow depth as the storm total in 2/5-6/10.) Philadelphia's change over to the NJ state park across the river as the official snow site has been yielding higher snow totals than downtown Philly in many more storms than not. Of the KU I-95 cities, Baltimore, Philly, and NYC all have snow reporting sites that will tend to have higher snow totals than the downtown core. DCA and Logan Airport tend to be lower with exceptions. Logan's biggest exception is PDII which set the all-time record total for Boston even though nowhere in the rest of Boston got close to that 27.5" total. I guess all we can say is there's very little consistency in snow records once you move sites or change snow measuring processes. Past observers in all the cities did not follow the 6-hr rule anyway. Top snowstorm lists are pointless and it's a good idea for DC, like Matt does, to analyze DC numbers/snow climate only post-move to DCA. what are the storms where DCA did better than much of DC metro OTTOMH PD1 Veterans Day Air Florida? 1/7/88? superstorm 93 (j/k) 2/16/96? 3/9/99 2/11/06 (more than IAD) and a bunch of 1" events so it does happen, though it is rare in the more sizable events Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow. Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 It's as little as 3/4 a mile from parts of DC, 2 from the Washington Monument and 4 from the heart of downtown. BWI is like 8 miles from downtown Baltimore but no one ever complains about BWI for some reason. DCA has had a number of sneaky events recently that were more than me and more than IAD..just happens that they are small.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 It's still an interesting topic to me-- particularly snow totals-- because recent developments in other cities *have* changed the official snow climate for that city going forward. Baltimore's new snow totals aren't directly comparable to the inflated BWI totals in the past with the over measuring issue. (I still think it makes no sense to overcompensate and just use the snow depth as the storm total in 2/5-6/10.) Philadelphia's change over to the NJ state park across the river as the official snow site has been yielding higher snow totals than downtown Philly in many more storms than not. Of the KU I-95 cities, Baltimore, Philly, and NYC all have snow reporting sites that will tend to have higher snow totals than the downtown core. DCA and Logan Airport tend to be lower with exceptions. Logan's biggest exception is PDII which set the all-time record total for Boston even though nowhere in the rest of Boston got close to that 27.5" total. I guess all we can say is there's very little consistency in snow records once you move sites or change snow measuring processes. Past observers in all the cities did not follow the 6-hr rule anyway. Top snowstorm lists are pointless and it's a good idea for DC, like Matt does, to analyze DC numbers/snow climate only post-move to DCA. I think for trends the differences in locations are very minor. I do data analysis pretty much all day every day at work and all databases suck. A lot of people focus too much down to very small numbers, or tenths of an inch in this case. If you're looking at a very specific thing like tenths of an inch of snow for a record I suppose it is maybe best to use just the one location... but as you know different people will measure differently. Wind will cause observers to cheat and take a measurement on a roof, etc., etc... snow measurement specificity isn't quite as important to most people as it is to us. There is really no difference between 1.5" and 1.75" for the rest of the world. There was talk of moving snow measurement to the observatory as that's about the only place that has staff on hand 24/7 and has other logical ties, but why give someone a new job of measuring snow vs something of importance right? I am still sitting on a story about DCA and snow but I need to do actual tests myself and since it never snows that's kind of tough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
needbiggerboat Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 It's as little as 3/4 a mile from parts of DC, 2 from the Washington Monument and 4 from the heart of downtown. BWI is like 8 miles from downtown Baltimore but no one ever complains about BWI for some reason. Still not DC. Move the measuring station back to the city. They could also put a snowboard on the Washington Monument grounds, but the rats would trample over the board and disrupt the accuracy. Part of a theme of DCers and people outside the region assuming parts of VA are DC. Same thing with 9/11. People assume NY and DC were attacked that day...it was NY and VA. Baltimore and BWI?....might as well be another country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Still not DC. Move the measuring station back to the city. They could also put a snowboard on the Washington Monument grounds, but the rats would trample over the board and disrupt the accuracy. Part of a theme of DCers and people outside the region assuming parts of VA are DC. Same thing with 9/11. People assume NY and DC were attacked that day...it was NY and VA. Baltimore and BWI?....might as well be another country. Yeah, you have a point but there are a lot of things like that and DC is a very small place even for a county. When it comes to temps and other readings I think eventually there will be less focus on specific points... ultimately those things will probably get integrated into a lot more consumer items and we'll have more of a cloud of info. Even if not, personal and wxbug type stations will continue to increase in coverage. The big suck factor there is there's no record publicly available in most cases and it's hard to verify total accuracy. Snow measurement is a tricky subject overall. For something so seemingly simplistic it is fraught with issues all over the place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gymengineer Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 what are the storms where DCA did better than much of DC metro OTTOMH PD1 Veterans Day Air Florida? 1/7/88? superstorm 93 (j/k) 2/16/96? 3/9/99 2/11/06 (more than IAD) and a bunch of 1" events so it does happen, though it is rare in the more sizable events Yeah, from your list, I think 2/11/06 doesn't count because something was off with the IAD number. Observers around there were all in the foot range. And I actually think DCA's total was low for 2/16/96 compared to the rest of the city and east. I'd add 12/57, 11/89, and 1/92 your list. The winter I'm really curious about is 83/84. The discrepancy with IAD is so huge that I wonder what downtown DC experienced. I guess I can check Utah State records for a DC site... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow. Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Yeah, from your list, I think 2/11/06 doesn't count because something was off with the IAD number. Observers around there were all in the foot range. And I actually think DCA's total was low for 2/16/96 compared to the rest of the city and east. I'd add 12/57, 11/89, and 1/92 your list. The winter I'm really curious about is 83/84. The discrepancy with IAD is so huge that I wonder what downtown DC experienced. I guess I can check Utah State records for a DC site... I lived in annandale at the time and piecing together records I got about 15" that winter.....I remember 3/8/84 pretty clearly and we did well where I was...maybe 3-5", and I know DCA got almost nothing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow. Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Yeah, from your list, I think 2/11/06 doesn't count because something was off with the IAD number. Observers around there were all in the foot range. And I actually think DCA's total was low for 2/16/96 compared to the rest of the city and east. I'd add 12/57, 11/89, and 1/92 your list. The winter I'm really curious about is 83/84. The discrepancy with IAD is so huge that I wonder what downtown DC experienced. I guess I can check Utah State records for a DC site... I spent some time earlier this year piecing together everything I could to reconstruct old totals, and these were my estimates for my youth...didnt bother with 72-76.... Lower Bucks County, PA 76-77 - 21" 77-78 - 57"78-79 - 31" 79-80 - 16" Annandale, VA (outside the beltway near NOVA) 80-81 - 4" 81-82 - 30" 82-83 - 35" 83-84 - 15" 84-85 - 10" 85-86 - 17" 86-87 - 35" 87-88 - 20" 88-89 - 10" 89-90 - 25" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
das Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Got up to 30. 29.5 now. Topped out at 29.3F an hour ago here in Clarksburg. Slow ride down begins. 28.9F/13DP, winds out of the south at 6mph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avdave Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Topped out at 29.3F an hour ago here in Clarksburg. Slow ride down begins. 28.9F/13DP, winds out of the south at 6mph. did hit 30* here now down to 29.6*. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kay Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Full ice covering survived the day. High of 31. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhotoGuy Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Full ice covering survived the day. High of 31. Nice photo! No ice near the Patapsco River yet. Some minor icing in the coves of the creeks though. Local large ponds have ice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I bottomed out at 6 this morning. High was 27. I told ya I don't sink to the lowest lows on this ridge top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj2va Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 27.9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
87storms Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 feels like a standard winter chilly evening. felt it last night though...one night of those kind of temps is enough for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 GFS shows -12C at 925 mb across northern Florida. Winds at 925 mb are screaming south across the GOM. Point is, we're getting a historic arctic outbreak, all the way down toward 20 degrees N. Latitude. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avdave Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 23* here now, Calm winds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldie 22 Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 23* here now, Calm winds Jyo just jumped up to 30 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIC_WX Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Jyo just jumped up to 30 Gotta be an error ob, I am at 25.0 and almost never ever colder than JYO, particularly in the evenings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nj2va Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 27.9 After falling to 27.5, I'm up to 28.4. Maybe already on the rise here unless its just a blip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avdave Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Jyo just jumped up to 30 another plane must have taken off, no way Im 23 and they are 30 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I'm at 20....and I don't want any freezing rain Sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhineasC Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 18 here, apparently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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