Winter 2014-2015 Pattern Discussion Thread II

[GlaringSun]

i'm looking at h384 on the GFS.. if that cold air moves SE, and storm in Texas and Arkansas moves east, that could be a real fantasy snowstorm there ;^) Won't happen tho... LOL

[packbacker]

Para is my new fav model...why is this look so hard to attain.

[burgertime]

What's the next step up after snow? Figure we want to bank as much as possible when the inevitable "warming" starts

 

Not good on the GFS...but on the PARA it looks interesting at the end. 

[superjames1992]

What's the next step up after snow? Figure we want to bank as much as possible when the inevitable "warming" starts

The next step is sending the low to Cuba.

[South_MountainWX]

Honestly delta ive had my eye on it all week if the precipitation would come in sooner it would certainly raise the chances especially i-40 (cad areas) north with hp to the north. Just my 2 cents Great videos too by the way ive truly enjoyed them.

[deltadog03]

Honestly delta ive had my eye on it all week if the precipitation would come in sooner it would certainly raise the chances especially i-40 (cad areas) north with hp to the north. Just my 2 cents Great videos too by the way ive truly enjoyed them.

Thank you!!  I honestly think that could be possible if some sneaks east quickly enough overnight thur into early fri

[CandymanColumbusGA]

Bank on the storm for the 12-14th timeframe. That's when I'm moving to Charlottesville... That means this storm is definitely going to happen.

[cbmclean]

  Just when you think you have all of life's answers, they change all of the questions. Take last year for example, we thought for sure it was going to wall-to-wall warm. Look how it turned out... this year we felt fairly confident that it would be cold... I still believe that we will turn the corner, but who knows if we will make up for December. However, I don't see it waiting until late January to turn cold.  The only thing that scares me is the MJO. Although some have argued that it has little bearing on our weather, I would rather see it in phases 7,8, or 1 than where it is now.

I am one of the laymen who lurk around the site.  I post very rarely, as I have nothing to contribute but I do ask questions from time to time in an attempt to help me gain insight into the science of meteorology, particularly Numerical Weather Prediction.

 

CAD_WEDGE_NC's touched on a point about which I have been wondering.  He(she?) mentions the forecast bust for last year, and a potential bust for this year.  I am interested in the skill of long term forecasts, especially in the winter months.  Everybody seems to have one.  Some seem to verify, at least in part.  Others are complete busts.  Some may be vague enough to go either way.  My question to the professional mets is: how much predictive skill do we actually have?  It seems obvious to me that we don't get it right every year, for example last year.  But then again I remember winter 2011 - 2012 when it seems that virtually every index and tool pointed to wall-to-wall warmth, and yea verily it came to path. 

 

So when we succeed, such as then, do we know why we succeed, and when we fail, do we have any idea why we fail?  For example, do we understand why the wall-to-wall warmth predicted for last year failed to verify?  What signals were being examined which turned out to be misleading?

[ncskywarn]

Could someone please explain to me how from hours 300-324 it wouid not be all ZR? Opposed to rain like its showing.

 Station ID: KRDU Lat:   35.87 Long:   78.78                                                         GFS Model Run: 18Z 31DEC 2014 Clouds Bases and Tops are now agl  HR Valid     2m Tmp 2m Dpt 10m Dir 10m Spd TPrcp CPrcp 1000-500 500mb 850mb 500mb  MSLP  TCC PRS                 Deg F  Deg F  deg     kt    in.   in.     Thk    GPH   Tmp   Tmp    mb    %  TEXT 204 01/09 06Z   24     -3     77     2    0.00  0.00    546    572    0.1 -14.3 1033.8   1      216 01/09 18Z   42     17    139     5    0.00  0.00    551    577    4.0 -13.4 1032.5   5       228 01/10 06Z   38     35    213     4    0.00  0.00    554    578    5.7 -12.9 1029.2  39 -RA   240 01/10 18Z   53     51    204     5    0.10  0.00    556    577    7.1 -13.6 1026.1  93 -RA   252 01/11 06Z   53     53    187     6    0.02  0.00    559    579   10.2 -13.3 1023.4  90 -RA   264 01/11 18Z   65     62    242     9    0.14  0.00    561    576   11.7 -13.8 1018.4  97 -RA    276 01/12 06Z   55     54    278     8    0.07  0.00    558    575   10.4 -14.1 1020.6  96 -RA    288 01/12 18Z   36     33     36     14   0.50  0.00    551    573    5.0 -13.6 1027.5 100 -RA    300 01/13 06Z   31     28     34     13   0.31  0.00    549    570    3.8 -13.9 1027.2 100 -RA    312 01/13 18Z   31     30     10     13   0.99  0.00    546    564    0.6 -15.3 1022.6 100 RA     324 01/14 06Z   25     25    357     8    0.13  0.00    542    564   -1.5 -16.3 1027.6  66 -FZRN  336 01/14 18Z   37     34     22     6    0.00  0.00    549    573    2.0 -15.9 1030.3  22        348 01/15 06Z   30     29     21     5    0.00  0.00    551    576    2.0 -16.8 1031.2  69 -RA    360 01/15 18Z   42     40     34     7    0.01  0.00    553    576    4.5 -13.1 1028.8  95 -RA    372 01/16 06Z   42     42     29     7    0.41  0.00    556    575    7.8 -13.4 1023.7  99 -RA    384 01/16 18Z   49     47      3     7    0.06  0.00    555    573    7.1 -14.1 1022.1  87 -RA   

[CLTwx]

The next step is sending the low to Cuba.

I realize this is banter: Cuba is kinda nice this year...and so is the southeast    

[SnowGoose69]

I am one of the laymen who lurk around the site.  I post very rarely, as I have nothing to contribute but I do ask questions from time to time in an attempt to help me gain insight into the science of meteorology, particularly Numerical Weather Prediction.

 

CAD_WEDGE_NC's touched on a point about which I have been wondering.  He(she?) mentions the forecast bust for last year, and a potential bust for this year.  I am interested in the skill of long term forecasts, especially in the winter months.  Everybody seems to have one.  Some seem to verify, at least in part.  Others are complete busts.  Some may be vague enough to go either way.  My question to the professional mets is: how much predictive skill do we actually have?  It seems obvious to me that we don't get it right every year, for example last year.  But then again I remember winter 2011 - 2012 when it seems that virtually every index and tool pointed to wall-to-wall warmth, and yea verily it came to path. 

 

So when we succeed, such as then, do we know why we succeed, and when we fail, do we have any idea why we fail?  For example, do we understand why the wall-to-wall warmth predicted for last year failed to verify?  What signals were being examined which turned out to be misleading?

 

This year we have 2 definite problems and one or two possible ones...first off the QBO is overly strong which tends to limit blocking...many, and probably too many people overlooked this.  The El Nino is not really gaining much ground and hence may be a reason the pattern is acting more Nina like since we've come off a stretch of mostly La Ninas.   The snowcover rule did not really work so far predicting the AO, thats possibly a result of the QBO or possibly something else...there have been other years back in the 70s and 80s where the high snow cover rule did not work for a -AO.  Last year most people were nearly correct but a ridiculous ridge out over Alaska into the pole region basically overcame every other negative factor for a cold winter in the US and there were many of them...last year was a classic example of how one thing can ruin a forecast.  The AO and NAO forecasts last winter were largely correct by many.

[Jon]

Para is my new fav model...why is this look so hard to attain.

Wow. Just wow. What a fantasy look. The end of the 0z-12z runs today looked somewhat the same, but I didn't expect this.

 

I know I've mentioned it but the para is doing OK or better than the Euro in the LR lately (tail end of Dec) so I would almost look at it as closely as I would the Euro. I actually look at trends in all models in the LR and see which one seems more probable. With the Seasonal forecasts the way they were, with this next influx of cold getting sniffed out, and the cold I see bottled up in Canada in the model runs, the SSWE (whether sig or not), MJO maybe getting in line...etc, etc...this sticks out to me here, this look. Tracking storms was my first love when I didn't really get much of the upper atmosphere meteorology or what 500mb even meant. Patterns have overtaken that and now I prefer to spend most of my time looking at patterns. I remember last year a lot of my thoughts were almost driven by the Euro control, it always seemed to sniff out LR  patterns before the Euro or any other OP run did...and I'd see trends evolving run by run...which is my reasons as to why these LR patterns shouldn't be completely thrown out because it's the "last frame of the GFS" etc. After all Euro control is only a single solution yet it sniffed out the severity (I think) of the PV drop of last year if I'm not mistaken.

 

Everything about that NH look makes sense. Look at the ridges, corresponding troughs throughout the globe, not just over the US. We've seen countless warm patterns that look like crap in the LR (SE death ridge, ridge over the entire US, etc) but what I do is get a global or NH look, step back from the warmth over the US and overall you see a global look that makes no sense...The troughs don't look quite right or drawn out, etc. You literally see model error (hence sub 0.5 verification scores this far out)...This would cause you to question the look over the US and not winter cancel, while people are going man this 360hr look! Gross! Winter CANCEL!

 

I'm not saying that pattern is a lock obviously, but it wouldn't surprise me a blockbuster pattern reload by Jan 15th for the rest of the month, after we get whatever we're due to the first 15 days, just because the amount of changes we're getting in the first half of January, wherever they may lead.

 

Sorry for the rambling but that image got me excited, even if its the para GFS and that far away. The recent trends in storm chances should give some hope on a not so torchy home stretch.

[Cold Rain]

Jon, the para was showing a bunch of crap in the LR when the GFS was showing cold earlier this month. And look where we are. It may be doing better in the LR than most give it credit for, as you said.