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Feb 18/19 Disco/Obs


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9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

we should scrap all threads and just make the board one big stream of consciousness 

Possibly. But we could also just keep model discussion in model discussion threads and then start a storm relative thread a day before they actually start. There’s never just one way of doing things. Doing things because that’s always the way they have been done is probably the worst rationale ever.

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Shitty storm filled with disappointment but had some pretty cool moments to me. If I didn't have any idea what the models were saying and this event happened I probably would have enjoyed it quite a bit. That said, that was some heavy ass sleet and the heavy snow even though brief and intermittent was pretty cool. 

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

But my "fear" all along for what could wreck this turned out to be correct.  Even up here I have mixed with a lot of sleet and its holding down accumulations.  

The reality of your snow fear index, aka the NAM,  has worked out rather well this season. 

Went to the Food Lion yesterday for a few things and when the cashier and I spoke about the impending weather she said its all hype. She said with great confidence , there going to be wrong again,  and she was correct. 

Without computers, without soundings,  without met knowledge and using only persistence she beat the forecasters. Thats funny.

I was despaired the last three winters because the base state prevented any threats. Now my fear is the ability and ROI on tracking in the long and short range.  The majority of this winter, with it's record - NAO, record - AO, etc., modeling did poorly, 3 out of 4 winter storm warnings in my area never achieved the criteria , more or less. 

Yes, weather forecasting is humbling and challenging. But, this winter has been a emotional rollercoaster of mostly despair and huge let downs.     

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1 minute ago, Wetbulbs88 said:

Yep. I guess people just tend to cast my posts aside but I banged the drum last night, and I've been saying for years (in the NY forum as well) that the NAM(s) are greatly improved models. Yes, they're prevaricating. But that's what they do. At 12-36 hours they have been the best models this year bar none. 

When I was in Harlem it was the same deal. NAM was the first to catch onto something at the final hour. The massive 2017 blizzard that was supposed to bring 24-36" in March--it absolutely nailed the warm nose, and the pros had egg all over their face. 

That’s Harlem for ya. Didn’t need the NAM to tell you that was going to happen. I grew up in NW Rockland county where it was typically 5-8-10 degrees colder during storms and snowed twice as much annually despite being only 25-30 miles away from downtown (as the crow flies) That’s just the climo of that area. 287/87 has always been the fall line in the NYC metro. It’s a different world N and NW of the NYS thruway. I can recall at least 7-8 storms where nyc rained and my area saw over a foot. The Bronx always did better than Manhattan which did better than Brooklyn, queens, and the island, etc. 24-36” of pure snow in downtown NYC is extremely rare for a reason. 

Your point about the NAM’s performance is spot on. Inside of 24-36, the hi res has been cash money. I’m not sure how many storms people need to live through until they grasp the NAMs dominance in the short range and that it is literal garbage outside of 60. I said it to @WinterWxLuvr last night…. If the 3k NAM shows a near identical low track and high positioning to Globals within 24 hours but shows the warm Nose 50 miles further north, you best be paying attention - its probably right.  IMO, the NAM shouldn’t even be looked at until within 48. It will save people a ton of confusion about the NAM showing a snowstorm in Ohio / Buffalo 5 days out and the whiplash it does to reality within 48. 

I understand many are disappointed and rightfully so, but Models overall did quite well with this. Euro, GFS, PARA, EPS, UKMET, etc all pretty did pretty well in regards to the overall pattern evolution and track a few days out, which is what globals are used for - and in the short term, the mesos (RAP,  NAM twins, HRW) took it home on the nitty gritty details. That’s why using a mixture of model consensus and local climo is so important when making a forecast and why Mets don’t just choose a “reliable model” and make a forecast off of it verbatim.  I know it’s tempting for folks to compare ground truth to kuchera snow maps and see a bust during what’s been a very tough winter for many, but if you analyze models based on their strong suits, they actually did pretty well here once we got within 3-4 days. In a general sense, it is a shame that in the year 2021, models are still so far apart on the details but what can we do. 

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8 minutes ago, leesburg 04 said:

Shitty storm filled with disappointment but had some pretty cool moments to me. If I didn't have any idea what the models were saying and this event happened I probably would have enjoyed it quite a bit. That said, that was some heavy ass sleet and the heavy snow even though brief and intermittent was pretty cool. 

Truth in this. I’ve often thought the models kinda take away some of the fun. 

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Had a nice Jebwalk right in the middle of the sleet bomb. Was actually pretty cool. Roads were pretty messy around the neighborhood and up near Rt 103 and Rt 100. Walking on the sleet reminded me of those some those crappy loose granular Ski Liberty days I’ve encountered in the past. All good. Whatevs. Onward and upward to our next fail. ;)

3BE5A641-1AB9-450B-BD47-17EA1A3C1BD4.jpeg

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4 minutes ago, jayyy said:

That’s Harlem for ya. Didn’t need the NAM to tell you that was going to happen. I grew up in NW Rockland county where it was typically 5-8-10 degrees colder during storms and snowed twice as much annually despite being only 25-30 miles away from downtown (as the crow flies) That’s just the climo of that area. 287/87 has always been the fall line in the NYC metro. It’s a different world N and NW of the NYS thruway. I can recall at least 7-8 storms where nyc rained and my area saw over a foot. The Bronx always did better than Manhattan which did better than Brooklyn, queens, and the island, etc. 24-36” of pure snow in downtown NYC is extremely rare for a reason. 

Your point about the NAM’s performance is spot on. Inside of 24-36, the hi res has been cash money. I’m not sure how many storms people need to live through until they grasp the NAMs dominance in the short range and that it is literal garbage outside of 60. I said it to @WinterWxLuvr last night…. If the 3k NAM shows a near identical low track and high positioning to Globals within 24 hours but shows the warm Nose 50 miles further north, you best be paying attention - its probably right.  IMO, the NAM shouldn’t even be looked at until within 48. It will save people a ton of confusion about the NAM showing a snowstorm in Ohio / Buffalo 5 days out and the whiplash it does to reality within 48. 

I understand many are disappointed and rightfully so, but Models overall did quite well with this. Euro, GFS, PARA, EPS, UKMET, etc all pretty did pretty well in regards to the overall pattern evolution and track a few days out, which is what globals are used for - and in the short term, the mesos (RAP,  NAM twins, HRW) took it home on the nitty gritty details. That’s why using a mixture of model consensus and local climo is so important when making a forecast and why Mets don’t just choose a “reliable model” and make a forecast off of it verbatim.  I know it’s tempting for folks to compare ground truth to kuchera snow maps and see a bust during what’s been a very tough winter for many, but if you analyze models based on their strong suits, they actually did pretty well here once we got within 3-4 days. In a general sense, it is a shame that in the year 2021, models are still so far apart on the details but what can we do. 

All correct, except one thing: Kuchera maps in THIS storm were actually more reasonable, including on NAM. 

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29 minutes ago, Wetbulbs88 said:

I disagree. First of all, very pedantic scrutiny of the word area. By area, I meant our area. Not sure how you derived otherwise, or how that's relevant.

Secondly, the 0z NAM last night was by far the most accurate solution. The pros specifically singled it out. If you took the snow maps verbatim that's on you. But the mix line and soundings were damn near right. 

I love that you clarified your diction by not contributing any new information whatsoever. Very helpful. In case it helps you, when I said area, I meant our geographic area of VA, MD, WV. If that's not what you meant, then I can't help you. If, on the other hand, you meant the geographic area like I did, then I'd hope you'd agree that a model's performance in our area is vastly more relevant than other areas where you might be able to point to relative success. 

I will direct you to the disco this morning which pointed out that although the NAM was close with the warm nose, it too underestimated it. Also, I'd like to point out that the NAMs busted in large part due to QPF overestimation, not because of the mix line. You can see that in the 00Z run which you previously called cherry-picked before you specifically lauded it. 

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30 minutes ago, mattie g said:

But which areas received 1" of QPF? Also, I don't see that this area has widespread 0.6"-1.00" of QPF, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

The northern tier likely came the closest. The Winchester to Manchester area saw very heavy banding for about 8 hours under those bands. My guess is that we are above 0.8” QPF going off of 10:1 ratios. If ratios were lower, then we saw even more than that. 

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The weirdness of the roads helped make this event not fun or memorable.. but at least interesting. Even after repeated plowing/treatments even the main roads remind me of the Midwest. Persistent ice and compacted snow (in this case sleet) to drive on. A bit of a throwback for me in that regard... while at the same time seeing significant accumulating sleet for the first time.

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2 minutes ago, RevWarReenactor said:

I am so glad I don't do this to myself anymore. Not going to lie though I had a moment. Just a short one right now.

 

But really you can't make it up. Just unbelievable bad luck we've had. At some point this bad luck has to end, right? Please PSU, make it stop?

 

 

IMG_6830.jpg

doubt it ends this year...maybe next!

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Still in awe at the power of that +1c warm layer between 800-825. With a surface look like this….temps in the low 20s at onset….heavy precip… we still managed to mainly be ice/sleet for the metros. That damn trough (lack thereof) killed us as far as getting an appreciable area wide snowfall. 

A83077BE-365D-4F53-AB8C-2C61E5CF69DC.jpeg

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