October 2026 general discussion

[Damage In Tolland]

4 minutes ago, BrianW said:

Random map with no location? Looks great down here on the shoreline the next 10 days with Ryan going 0% for rain and zero cold in sight. 

 

 

 

 

Yeah folks is cocked in some places tonight 

[Brewbeer]

19 minutes ago, JACKASS said:

Fiberglass?

aluminum sheet metal and galvanized wire mesh to hold the bondo 

[WinterWolf]

The Bondo is gonna show the waves, if your not super talented with it…I know you’re doing it yourself…and I give you credit, but I hope it comes out well. 

[Brewbeer]

it's a 30 year old daily driver; it'll be good enough to cover up the holes and sharp edges and pass inspection

i'll post photos of the final product tomorrow

edit to add story:  about 5 or 6 years ago my wife was backing the Camry out of the garage while the Honda was out parked in the driveway.  she didn't inherit good eyesight and backed the Camry into the rear wheel well shown in the earlier photo, really messing up the wheel well on the Honda and totally messing up the paint on the bumper corner of the Camry.  I just re-painted the Camry bumper corner along with some rust work I did in the wheel well.  It came out great (Camry before photo, Camry after photo) and my wife was happy.  now i'm fixing the other car involved in the collision, lol

 

[WinterWolf]

15 minutes ago, Brewbeer said:

it's a 30 year old daily driver; it'll be good enough to cover up the holes and sharp edges and pass inspection

i'll post photos of the final product tomorrow

Ahh gotcha…understood. 

[Damage In Tolland]

Why not buy new cars 

[kdxken]

1 hour ago, BrianW said:

Random map with no location? Looks great down here on the shoreline the next 10 days with Ryan going 0% for rain and zero cold in sight. 

 

 

 

 

The location is 01770. Weirdly the forecast you posted has showers beginning at the same time. I don't consider showers sunny and beautiful.

[Brewbeer]

21 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Why not buy new cars 

lots of reasons, the biggest is no payment on a car you own

other reasons include they have cameras inside that watch you, they report your driving data to the manufacturer, the insurance is unreal if you have junior operator kids (2 here), they aren't repairable by the local shop until out of warranty, they are full of plastic and computers, etc.  5 cars and 2 kids in college both junior operators 

but honestly, new cars just don't have value vs. cost compared to the older models.  the peak of north american automotive engineering from a reliability, repairability and value perspective, was about 20-25 years ago.  both my accords have car-play aftermarket radios with remote mic and back up cameras; navigation from your phone and a great stereo are the only tech I really want out of my wheels   

 

[SouthCoastMA]

I do miss my 04 Ford Ranger..gave me 242k miles before it rusted out..but that's on me

[kdxken]

1 hour ago, BrianW said:

Random map with no location? Looks great down here on the shoreline the next 10 days with Ryan going 0% for rain and zero cold in sight. 

 

 

 

 

Where are you seeing a map? 

[kdxken]

1 hour ago, Brewbeer said:

it's a 30 year old daily driver; it'll be good enough to cover up the holes and sharp edges and pass inspection

i'll post photos of the final product tomorrow

edit to add story:  about 5 or 6 years ago my wife was backing the Camry out of the garage while the Honda was out parked in the driveway.  she didn't inherit good eyesight and backed the Camry into the rear wheel well shown in the earlier photo, really messing up the wheel well on the Honda and totally messing up the paint on the bumper corner of the Camry.  I just re-painted the Camry bumper corner along with some rust work I did in the wheel well.  It came out great (Camry before photo, Camry after photo) and my wife was happy.  now i'm fixing the other car involved in the collision, lol

 

Should be good. They'll give passenger cars some leeway. Pick up trucks not so much.

[kdxken]

23 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Why not buy new cars 

Why not buy a private jet?

[kdxken]

5 minutes ago, SouthCoastMA said:

I do miss my 04 Ford Ranger..gave me 242k miles before it rusted out..but that's on me

I would consider that a success.

[Brewbeer]

21 minutes ago, SouthCoastMA said:

I do miss my 04 Ford Ranger..gave me 242k miles before it rusted out..but that's on me

New England is hard on vehicles, living on the ocean makes it even worse, you can see the rust on the underside of the 97 Accord, my 02 Ranger (86K miles) is rusting too; and that is the next auto project, for next year   

the internet has lots of good things to say about applying a spray-on undercarriage protectorant like Fluidfilm; I'm going to treat the vehicles before winter.  I was a bit heartbroken to see how much rust the antique honda actually had when I started working on it.  had I known is was as bad as it was, I would have gone after it much sooner than I did

[powderfreak]

6 minutes ago, Brewbeer said:

New England is hard on vehicles, living on the ocean makes it even worse, you can see the rust on the underside of the 97 Accord, my 02 Ranger (86K miles) is rusting too; and that is the next auto project, for next year   

I had two Honda Pilots make it 200K+ with the usual maintenance.  A 2002 and 2013.  Got them used and they lasted a long time at various points in my life, but both succumbed to rusted frames by 240K miles.

[Damage In Tolland]

19 minutes ago, kdxken said:

Why not buy a private jet?

Why not buy a new chainsaw?

[CT Valley Snowman]

I have a Tacoma with 327K, still going strong.  My 18-year-old son is driving a 07 Corolla.   Our main family van is newer, but I have no shame in using older vehicles as well. I have 2 young drivers 17 and 18 years old on my insurance policy which is very expensive.  

[78Blizzard]

Last night's 0z GFS had the low temperature in the AM here at 42F.  We hit 28F.  That is not a small miss, and very little of that was due to radiation cooling since it was already at 32F at 1 AM.  

So I'm starting to wonder if the GFS is overstating the urban heat effect from Boston for the suburban areas?  They are consistently overstating temps whether during the day or evening.

 

[vortex95]

On 10/23/2026 at 2:57 PM, kdxken said:

 

@CoastalWx needs to stop putting the 'bots up on pedestal when it comes to forecasting.  Cherry-picked events skewing things, so he worships it like it is a panacea for all our fcst problems!  GDMI only does well for the "easy" patterns/forecasts.  Follow climo basically!

Here's what GDMI had vs. EPS on 10/18.  And the EPS also handled the loop/odd motion many TYs have when the approach Taiwan.  You need physics-based models for terrain factors, among other things.  These kinds of details count and the ante is high.  Outlier cases are often the biggest impacts, like a Sandy, and not enough cases for GDMI to draw from.

[vortex95]

On 10/23/2026 at 2:59 PM, WinterWolf said:

Now will they self learn from this? If so…that necessarily isn’t a bad thing that they failed. 

This radar loop is KEWL for Champi!

[vortex95]

On 10/23/2026 at 10:36 AM, CoastalWx said:

I honestly don’t even look at the GFS anymore.

One message "did you see the GFS?" and you'll look!

[vortex95]

On 10/23/2026 at 3:40 PM, weatherwiz said:

ehh I don't think that's how that really works. The overall scheme is much more complex than just "learning" from mistakes and misses. 

While its become apparent AI models are going to provide some tremendous value, at least in medium range forecasting, if we truly want to make a substantial leap with modeling we need two things

1) Superior computing (such as quantum computing) that is able to perform complex calculations at a much faster rate. Another key aspect about quantum computing is they will be able to handle and perform even calculations that are way more complex than what supercomputers can currently handle 

2) The ability to initialize current state better (the Euro has been worlds ahead in this) and part of this goes into quantum computing and ability to handle and perform challenging complex equations. 

3) Another challenge is putting knowledge, or our understanding on physical processes into mathematical terms to be computed. There is always going to be some sort of disconnect because we don't have a true 100% knowledge of every process which occurs during storm evolution (example: why some supercells with hooks produce tornadoes while others don't) so we can't 100% model that accurately. And models just can't learn that without us being able to feed it that information first. 

In the end, it all comes down to in situ observations.  We can't possibly know the state of every cubic centimeter of the atmosphere at a given time.  Even if we did, models would need to make LOTS of assumptions w/ parametrization and emulation b/c we still can't directly simulate many atmospheric processes.

And the more complex models get, the challenge to keep things in balance goes up exponentially.  In other words, tweak one little thing, and it breaks another, and sometime a big break in an unexpected way.

@CoastalWx will just have to live w/ the fact he will never be able to forecast snowfall down the tenth of inch in Weymouth! 

 

[vortex95]

On 10/23/2026 at 8:51 PM, Damage In Tolland said:

 But seasons are seasons . Of course it’ll cool off in fall and heat up in summer . I’ve just never been able to understand the frost excitedness and wildness and people trying to make me feel badly for missing out 

 

[vortex95]

19 hours ago, kdxken said:

I don't know about shattered records but it looks warm. No real rain on any of the models out to 360. Let's do this...

I do not contest the cold out W and warm in the E. but the choice of colors and the 0.5 C intervals make things look a lot more "Xtreme" than they really will be.  It is a manipulative psychological thing, often done on purpose to push the extreme/crazy wx narrative.  You could choose a different color table, and shows the same thing, and it would not look as "scary."

For a met analysis and forecast tool it is good, but IMHO such maps, which are shared en masse on social media, do more harm than good due to the how the general public perceives them.

Also, I find people do not know the difference between temp anomalies and actual air temp, the public that is.  And the hype-masters out there know this.  And it is taken out of context far too often.  For instance, temps 8-12 C above avg DCA to BOS in early Nov is actually GREAT wx for the time of year (for most), as one example. Temps in the 70s and 80s w/ low dew points.  Costs for heating are *way* down.  Atypically warm in the cool season is not the same as in  the warm season, not for sensible wx impact and humans.  And such a pattern means little in the way of inclement wx.  That is good for business and commerce.

For general audience, just shows a map of actual fcst air temps, anomalies can be misleading.