mattie g Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 38 minutes ago, CAPE said: It was over for me yesterday at 12z. For areas SE of the Fall line it frozen potential was mostly dependent on the stronger confluence from that NS energy moving eastward into the 50-50 region, just as the wave was approaching. That proved to be a timing error on the GFS. With that shifting eastward sooner, there was really nothing to keep the wave from tracking further north and the flow from turning southeasterly out in front. Makes sense as you describe it. While I don't have a ton of leeway in marginal situations, you guys on that side of the bay have even less. Last night's runs definitely got me feeling good - it felt like we had turned things around across the board - but today has almost certainly proven that optimism to be misplaced. Just sucks, but I suppose we move on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GramaxRefugee Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 5 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said: Alright my math teacher is making me get up in front of the class and present about the weekend storm, anyone have any idea on what to say because all I got right now is that there are currently 3 scenarios (strong storm but too warm EURO/ICON, strong storm and cold RGEM/CMC, weak and cold/weak and warm GFS/NAM) and there no way to know which one will happen. I have till 11:08 to prepare my statement... Do you think you could get one of your buddies to video this presentation and then post it here? (You can edit it first if you're embarrassed). I, for one, would be willing to buy you a beer for your trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacChump Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 15 minutes ago, GramaxRefugee said: Do you think you could get one of your buddies to video this presentation and then post it here? (You can edit it first if you're embarrassed). I, for one, would be willing to buy you a beer for your trouble. do you know what the penalty for contributing to the delinquency of a minor is in this state? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacChump Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 well...it's probably pretty stiff ^ 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthArlington101 Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 me to the I-81 crew after seeing the 18z NAM 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkstorm Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 10 minutes ago, NorthArlington101 said: me to the I-81 crew after seeing the 18z NAM NOPE we are going to take our inch and enjoy it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravensrule Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 30 minutes ago, Darkstorm said: NOPE we are going to take our inch and enjoy it. I have never heard that before. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 7 minutes ago, WEATHER53 said: So let’s get this thinking about models with some more responses. It’s being proposed to me that models are not a weather forecast. I disagree. They are a “tool” to help forecasters devise a forecast. I disagree. Their programming and programmers is Not that way and they are Not 4/5/6 different model types all strung together to assist in formulating a forecast each 6 hour period. They are in fact their own prediction of what the weather will be at, for example, 18z Saturday. It’s not a clue nor hint to be strung together with other models to develop a forecast: It Is A Forecast . Then what are ensembles? What's the NBL? Why do we look at ALL the guidance and not just one model run? If we could create one perfect model that predicts the weather with 100% accuracy down to the second like in BTTF2 then yes, we could just program that one model, sit back, and let it forecast. But we don't have that ability. We know the best models we can currently create are flawed and will not perfectly predict at range. If you are taking them as they are and using them as a forecast that is user error. The skill is seeing all the permutations shown by the various models and interpreting what is most likely to happen within that envelope. The best are better at that...the rest post 300 hour model plots on twitter and facebook. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 3 minutes ago, WesternFringe said: Would you just give all the different models’ forecasts as your prediction then? Like if you were trying to make a forecast for 5 days out? Would you just list every possibility all the dozens of models threw out? Or would you look at the guidance, use your knowledge of weather as a human, and know your climo well enough to use the models as tools to make your own forecast? I need to apologize, yours was NOT EVEN CLOSE to the most ridiculous argument on here 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamn3 Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Waiting on the next runs every time like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Pimpernel Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 38 minutes ago, psuhoffman said: Then what are ensembles? What's the NBL? Why do we look at ALL the guidance and not just one model run? If we could create one perfect model that predicts the weather with 100% accuracy down to the second like in BTTF2 then yes, we could just program that one model, sit back, and let it forecast. But we don't have that ability. We know the best models we can currently create are flawed and will not perfectly predict at range. If you are taking them as they are and using them as a forecast that is user error. The skill is seeing all the permutations shown by the various models and interpreting what is most likely to happen within that envelope. The best are better at that...the rest post 300 hour model plots on twitter and facebook. Thanks for this description, PSU...couldn't have said it better myself...spot on! I know this particular person tends to diss models quite often, and to a point I get that. People can mis-use them or take some output too much at face value. However, as you say, they ARE guidance, not forecasts. Well, perhaps more precisely, each model is a forecast SIMULATION of what the atmosphere would do given a suitable set of initial conditions and the model's own programmed physics and thermodynamics. It will never be perfect...at least not anytime soon!...because our ability to perfectly model the atmosphere is limited, though it has dramatically improved over the decades. Even the initial conditions themselves are subject to errors or limitations, being on a discrete grid (plus observation measurement errors, etc.). I also get a little miffed at this person's occasional statements that ensembles essentially throw out "every possible solution." Or something to that effect. Ensembles DO NOT do this, nor are they intended to do so. They are intended to provide probabilistic information and uncertainty, WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THAT MODEL'S PHYSICS. Obviously there are certain assumptions, such as for a given ensemble suite of a particular base model (GFS, Euro, etc.), each member in that suite has equally likely outcome. Based on that and other theoretical considerations, this is why the use of the ensemble mean for many parameters (e.g., 500 mb heights) is considered to be the best estimate of an outcome in the medium to longer range. Or why it's good to look at solution clusters. The ops of a particular model is essentially just a high res ensemble member when you're looking at that time frame. Which is obviously why it's annoying for people to toss out a crappy looking 300+ hour GFS deterministic forecast just to make some point about how we suck or whatever. I know this is very simplified and general, what I said here, but you get the idea. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowershoresadness Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs.J Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 6 hours ago, catoctin wx said: @Mrs.J Sign us up for some of this! Is that for real??? The number 4 is right over my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
87storms Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 5 hours ago, HighStakes said: Lol. How do you think I feel. I can sit on back on my deck at 870 ft. and look up at Mount PSU at almost 1100 ft. Sometimes in marginal ZR events I will have little or no ice on my trees but look up on the ridge and see heavy ice accretion. I'm only at around 350', but the elevation rises considerably as soon as I head north from my neighborhood. I've noticed that in some of the recent marginal events, locations around 600-700' near the base of Gambrill will have basically nothing, but once you get up to 1000', any light rain/mix will change to snow. It's kinda wild how much of a difference the top of the Watershed is compared to the base of that mountain. Even though downtown Frederick is relatively low elevation, I think the fact that it's in a valley and surrounded by some of the ridges to the south, helps with these setups. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 5 hours ago, HighStakes said: Lol. How do you think I feel. I can sit on back on my deck at 870 ft. and look up at Mount PSU at almost 1100 ft. Sometimes in marginal ZR events I will have little or no ice on my trees but look up on the ridge and see heavy ice accretion. Next time I’ll throw some down to you. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psuhoffman Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 On a side note the internet is destroying the world. Ya it’s great that I can look up anything at all in 2 seconds. But back when you had to get information from sources with editorial standards we didn’t have to trust everyone to be responsible gatekeepers on BS. And even if you mean well….what if I read an article about some new Xray machine. I’m not qualified to determine the validity of the information. I don’t know jack about radiology tech. And I don’t want to have to fact check the latest radiology advancements. I got shit to do. OK that’s not true I’m just wasting time here and likely looking at synoptic plots of some 1938 snowstorm but I don’t want to fact check that ish. The example I gave is pretty innocuous but the same concept can cause big problems on less harmless topics! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mappy Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 I need just enough snow to get out of driving to Derwood for a family gathering. lol 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmclean Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Just noticed @brooklynwx99 posts in the NE subforum. He's not just a bigamist like me but a trigamist! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jebman Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Last night, mammoth got mauled, picked up 15 inches of cold smoke at 12 degrees. Palisades piled up 9 inches of fresh pow. Might be time for a ski trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Balti Zen Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 As of this moment, and today may make this funny in hindsight as it unfolds, but the board gets surprising passing marks from me for how it has handled this system going from being a potentially good event to a likely mostly non-event with some maturity. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldie 22 Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I was hoping to get some outside exercise by shoveling this weekend I guess I'll just replace that by taking down the Christmas decorations Looking like again my best chance to see snow will be when I travel to Minneapolis and Wisconsin for work. Next trip January 15th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldie 22 Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 My one wish for today is when PSU goes off on his if it can't snow with that track rant can he do it in here? 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Balti Zen Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 16 minutes ago, aldie 22 said: My one wish for today is when PSU goes off on his if it can't snow with that track rant can he do it in here? That guy, for all his obvious intelligence, is really bad at reading the room or realizing how his moods swing the long range thread. The funny part is he doesn’t see how taking a control of a weekly showing the worst possible thing and writing fiction off of it going forward might not be conducive to the overall discussion. At least he should balance that with some crazy 1400 hour control weekly run that shows 1000 inches of snow and write fantasy off of that. Would be equally productive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Balti Zen Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Random observation - when people write “you don’t want to be in the bullseye five days out” I always mentally reply - “I actually want my house in the middle of the bullseye on every run every time” 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowfan Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 31 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said: That guy, for all his obvious intelligence, is really bad at reading the room or realizing how his moods swing the long range thread. The funny part is he doesn’t see how taking a control of a weekly showing the worst possible thing and writing fiction off of it going forward might not be conducive to the overall discussion. At least he should balance that with some crazy 1400 hour control weekly run that shows 1000 inches of snow and write fantasy off of that. Would be equally productive. Because he is the room. There’s no need to read the room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interstate Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I wonder if I get more flakes this morning or on Saturday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baltosquid Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 If we’re dropping complaints, I’ll say that sometimes it grates to hear over and over again “not a typical storm for us, we don’t usually score this way” in the wake of a bad run… we have been on a historic streak of misses, and that includes missing low prob hit after low prob hit. I know no one is omitting the larger context on purpose; the ones who know what’s a good look or not are also the sort that probably are good at keeping focus on one storm. But it does feel like it’s speaking to a different angst (getting upset over missing one bad opportunity) than the actual angst (getting upset over having mostly bad opportunities for years and also missing all of them). Like, would I be wrong to say it’s odd (need not say the double C words) that most/more storm opportunities are razor’s edge now, atypical, or just in general may require a fluke to get through, and we simultaneously get Lucy’d on all of them (particularly the metros)? I feel like a part of building a climate year is occasionally hitting a storm you’d expect not to hit individually. It leaves a couple questions. First is the obvious “can it snow” and I am in the yes camp… but next is “can we do slam dunks?” And “can we do flukes?” To the former, we don’t seem to be getting those opportunities to test that. To the latter, sure as hell not recently. If we can’t do what we’d view as a fluke anymore then is it time to move the goalposts on what a fluke is? Are slam dunks and their supporting patterns actually just flukes now? It’s probably not that bad but it feels that way from Baltimore… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattie g Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I'll say this...it feels like every time we've had a modicum of a threat in the last couple/few years (not counting January 2022), a low pops up somewhere in the Great Lakes region. Our thermals get wrecked and we're done for. Every. Single. Time. I know that atmospheric physics is much more complicated than that one thing, but it's just too noticeable...and it's happening again with this storm. That Low that has been showing up near Lake Superior over the 36 hours or so of model runs, and as that thing has deepened just a little and edged ever closer to the Lakes, our thermals have gone to shit. Most of us were pretty close to the R/S line for many of these runs, but once that thing showed up where it did, we were done for. 2 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vastateofmind Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 2 hours ago, North Balti Zen said: As of this moment, and today may make this funny in hindsight as it unfolds, but the board gets surprising passing marks from me for how it has handled this system going from being a potentially good event to a likely mostly non-event with some maturity. My wife breathlessly reported to me this past Sun/Mon (based on what the media was feeding her) on a "major winter storm" incoming for NoVA this weekend. I just grinned at her and said, "give it time...you'll take your 33 and rain on Sat and enjoy it." She scoffed, I shrugged. Knowing that I'd get much closer to a realistic forecast discussion here, I forced myself to wait until late last evening to check in for some closer-to-showtime truth. Some good analyses as always, and the usual few bouts of back/forth sniping -- likely borne out of frustration with a retreating rain/snow line. My LOL "gut" forecast shared with my wife was correct, at least for SE FfxCo. Maybe we'll get an hour of snow TV on Sat, but whatever. A decade or more ago, I'd be one of the folks here having a meltdown...but I just can't get upset about this stuff anymore. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paleocene Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 17 minutes ago, vastateofmind said: My wife breathlessly reported to me this past Sun/Mon (based on what the media was feeding her) on a "major winter storm" incoming for NoVA this weekend. I just grinned at her and said, "give it time...you'll take your 33 and rain on Sat and enjoy it." She scoffed, I shrugged. Knowing that I'd get much closer to a realistic forecast discussion here, I forced myself to wait until late last evening to check in for some closer-to-showtime truth. Some good analyses as always, and the usual few bouts of back/forth sniping -- likely borne out of frustration with a retreating rain/snow line. My LOL "gut" forecast shared with my wife was correct, at least for SE FfxCo. Maybe we'll get an hour of snow TV on Sat, but whatever. A decade or more ago, I'd be one of the folks here having a meltdown...but I just can't get upset about this stuff anymore. I have a friend who is a fed who works in the PGH region; with people in this region. At a virtual all hands yesterday, he said people in the DC region were honking about a "major winter storm" this weekend which would lead to closures on Monday. Hilarious, but man, the proliferation of bad analysis of models/snow maps is problematic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now