psuhoffman

Very sorry. I hope things bounce back for you quickly when this is over. I’m in better shape than many and feel lucky but a significant portion of my earnings are “extras” that I do which are paid as stipends and not part of my base pay and my wife is on leave and not getting paid. So for now so things are a lot tighter than usual.

I teach economics, I’m fully aware of what they are trying to do. I’m just saying imo this isn’t the best way. If we assume we are going to continue running the markets and economy then yes we have no choice but to inject massive amounts of cap into the system. But they aren’t simply printing money for the reasons you understand. They are borrowing it or reappropriating it mostly. The interest on that will then eat up more of our tax revenues. We could just print the money but then we cause inflation as you said. Most people don’t realize it’s the production and value of your resources that matters not cash. The issue with doing it this way is inequity. By continuing a “free market” economy while mandating huge sectors of the market shut down you are creating enormous inequities between industries and individuals that will cause instability going forward. Some will be irreparably hurt no matter how much stimulus we do. On the other hand if you temporarily freeze the economy and transition necessary industry to command controls and subsidization until this is over there is much less inequity when we restart. So long as you freeze all debt payments on both ends, both to and from financial institutions, they will emerge as intact as they were. Same with businesses and individuals for the most part. Problem is there are some institutions actually making a profit during all this and they don’t want to lose that. This will allow the markets and financial sector to operate and continue making a profit but at the expense of severe inequities to others. The other option is most simply come out where they were going in but it requires the markets and financial institutions to pause and lose several months of profits. But since they wouldn’t actually lose money just potential profits that is a much more equitable way to deal with this imo.

I don’t consider this political because the stimulus bill is bipartisan and this is in no way an attack on one side or the other what I’m about to say pertains to general reaction by EVERYONE...I’m just genuinely confused by the reaction and the plan. Many other nations have totally suspended rent/mortgages/utilities/debt for months. How many people pay less than 1200 for all that over say 3 months? Imo what we just got is way less than what most governments are doing plus we will have to pay for this someday vs the idea of simply freezing then rebooting the economy when this is over. Yet people seem genuinely grateful if not downright giddy over this. Am I missing something?

So we’re at 2 storms that would have been decent snow events a month ago. Over under on how many more we get in the next 3 weeks...I say at least 2 more. We might even eek out a very minor snow event from a storm that would have been 1-2 feet in winter just to rub salt in the wound.

Here too, it has been slush bombs when heavier bands move through.

He advocated government workers lose pay because other people are hurting. He isn’t alone unfortunately. I find it odd that when people are struggling some react by trying to pull others down rather than figure out how to lift those in need up. Will it somehow make the people struggling feel better if everyone else gets screwed also? Whenever I’ve had problems I never thought the solution was how to put someone else into my same predicament. Something about our society I’ll never get.

The euro scenario with a better track could yield some snow. It’s getting too late for a big snow even up here but we’ve had minor snows in April several times since I’ve been up here.

You don’t have to let it get to you.

Stop torturing yourself.

Keep in mind in winter with a colder thermal gradient to create more WAA lift there would have been a more consolidated precip shield. We likely would have done better.

Time for another perfect track rain storm like yesterday and tomorrow. That was the easiest call I ever made.

I’ve been avoiding this mostly because it’s not our typical inconsequential banter and I don’t want to squabble when lives are at stake. But one thing for the people minimizing this to consider when comparing this to typical flu statistics. With flu we do not take the drastic measures most of the world is with this. So yes the numbers in China might look comparable to a flu season except China had to go into lockdown to achieve that result. You are failing to take into account what the numbers would look like if we acted like this was just flu and let it run it’s course. Now exactly what they would be is debatable and if you want to throw your 2 cents around wrt that fine...but it’s intellectually dishonest to compare infectious disease numbers when drastic measures are taken to contain a virus to numbers over a longer period of time when almost no societal measures are taken to stop the spread. If we used that method we could argue Ebola isn’t as bad as flu since most times when it pops up we take serious measures to contain it before it spreads and kills tens of thousands.

Poconos

We have no control over it so just relax and see what happens. If this basic pac base state persists in the means another 3-4 years at that point I would begin to accept maybe it’s a permanent (or semi permanent) climate shift. At that point if you want to see snow regularly in winter you know you need to move north. I’m skeptical this is truly a permanent shift. We are due for a shift in the AO base state. If we don’t see that in the next handful of years then I would worry.

I think the pacific winter base state pattern has been destructive to getting NAO blocking. In general we have seen a persistent pac ridge. (Notice there the pac ridge is finally eradicated and up goes the NAO ridge). That ridge tightens the thermal gradient to its north promoting a faster northern jet that will fight attempts to transport heat poleward thus prevents ridging. At times in the last 7 years that ridge shifted north enough that it created a favorable epo pattern. But other than that the only winter NAO blocking we’ve had in the last 7 years was during the super nino and very late in 2018 following a SSW that coupled with the TPV. So long as a huge pacific ridge is the dominant pattern it doesn’t help. There is a correlation between the warm mjo phases, that pac ridge, and +NAO. Unfortunately there has been some speculation that longer term climate changes might be driving the tendency for that dominant configuration. I’m skeptical it lasts that much longer but we will see.

The period right around the end of March early April has some chance at a fluke frozen event. The pattern isn’t awful. We have had plenty of minor snows into early April. But history suggests it will likely require getting hit flush and even then will be marginal and likely not significant. Not a good long lead tracking scenario. But not ruling out seeing more flakes.

@losetoa6 the bleeding turned into a full scale hemorrhage this run. The old gfs used to simply have a major cold thus south bias with everything so it was easy to adjust. Now it’s more nuanced. There are setups when north isn’t always a likely. But with an amplifying system in a progressive flow and retreating cold a north adjustment is a good bet the final 72 hours. When the system started to trend more amplified 2 days ago I wanted to see us on the northern fringe of snow. When at day 4 we were on the southern fringe I expected this to fail. Even the euro has a cold bias in a progressive pattern at range it’s just not as bad as the gfs. Just explaining the rationale for my pessimism.

I admire your ability to be excited by the prospects of a relatively insignificant frozen event. I should be clear I am commenting on our chances at a meaningful snowfall. I could still see our area get a slushy inch or two before being washed away by rain...but if that happens and PA gets 6”+ to me that will be just one more knife in the back from this winter. At this point if we’re not going to get an actual legit storm I’d rather it be warm out and I saw and still see our chances of getting more than a minor accumulation washed away by rain as extremely low. Not impossible but unlikely. But please don’t let my lack of interest ruin your enjoyment of a minor frozen event.

Setups matter. North trends don’t happen if a storm is de amplifying. And that doesn’t always mean arctic cold. A storm can shear out or be suppressed by a compressed flow. A north trend doesn’t happen if there is strong blocking or a northern stream feature that’s compressing the flow over top. But in a progressive pattern with an amplifying system a north trend the final 72 hours is still a good bet.

Being on the southern fringes of projected snowfall at day 3-5 absent blocking is never ever where you want to be. I could run off a long list of similar setups where even the euro was too far south at 72-100 hours with the southern edge of snow. We were never where I wanted to see guidance even on the best runs. The trend north happened exactly how/when I expected.

Why am I only wrong when I’m optimistic.

Why am I only wrong when I’m optimistic.

I would love the latest trends if I was in northern PA

The 12z icon shows what I’m talking about. Stronger system. Faster onset. Better thump of precip. But all rain. The north shift of the entire thermal gradient finally overcame what the benefits from those other factors can compensate for. If I had to bet that’s where this is heading.

To a point the north shift in the thermal boundary can be offset by better dynamic cooling or faster onset but only to a point. If the north trend continues we won’t like the end result.