OceanStWx

Where's my CON ob to verify my TAF tho??

My biggest issue is posture I think. I get lazy and slouch over. Currently I'm athletic enough to get through the ball with a crap turn, but that's usually a handsy swing and hook. When I stand tall and swing to a good finish I get my baby draw back. But all those years fearing a slice and now I LOATHE a hook.

I took tropical meteorology during my semester "abroad" at UH Manoa. The only time we discussed TCs was the cases when the form from the TUTT (the prof's general reasoning being that we spend far more days without TCs than with them). Just a whole semester on sea/land breezes, trade winds, inversions, shear lines, etc. It was fascinating really. TCs are fairly obvious elements of a tropical forecast, but day to day tropical meteorology is so subtle.

So the FV3 fixes were implemented at the end of February. In a nutshell this past summer and fall they discovered a couple problems with how snow was melting under warm conditions and calculating the solar zenith angle. If was fixes to those problems that created excess accumulating snow in marginal conditions, and exacerbated the lower level cold bias (which also affected snow accumulation). The new fix to those problems now looks at the fraction of frozen precip when it comes to accumulations, and the cold bias has been reduced. So far the AC scores are much improved. More or less matching the UKMET over the last month.

It's a little bit of a split climatology, your tornado/hail events are mostly in the early part of severe season (late winter/early spring) and wind events become more common around June through the rest of the summer. You definitely have a better shot that SNE for large hail, but the monster stuff is still way more likely well to your west. I'll just say that storms that typically bring a warning in SNE will more often be unwarned where you are now.

Breathe it in, springtime in New England.

Tip's warm front arrived. Wind flipped south and the temp jumped 10 degrees in an hour there.

Can see a little rope cloud on the leading edge of the backdoor front. So that's fun. Enjoy the warm day down in SNE.

Springtime in New England.

Why choose. Half day lift ticket and hit 9 holes on the way home.

He definitely misses some online reports, but always fills out his website. We are actually backfilling the info locally so that we can run our snowfall forecasts against his observations to find out just how bad we are up there. Because we're bad, the question is just how bad.

In high ratio snow if you're only measuring once, it's going to compact and possibly be several inches. But if you're super concerned with compaction, you can go out and measure the snow before the most significant compaction happens. You're only tied to clearing the board at observation time. See that's my point. You say be consistent, but then I tell people 24 hours is the most consistent and people aren't happy. If we're going to pick one it's going to be 24 hours because that's what the vast majority of reporting stations use (at least official NWS sources). But nobody wants to do 24 hours because it's less snow. There will never be a way to sync up all snowfall reports. We have to rely on volunteers, so the best you can hope for is every 8 hours after someone gets some sleep, but there's no way we can require that. The reality is that the more important measurements when it comes to snowfall are the liquid equivalent (for snow load and meltwater purposes) and snow depth because that's what's left on the ground after a storm. The climatological significance of the snowfall measurement is basically nil. I'm not sure if you're referring to the fact that in 1996 the NWS actually expanded the option for coops to do 6 hourly measurements. Before that time it was always once a day. Manned stations were always 6 hourly however. So I guess the actual inconsistency is that the NWS ever decided to allow volunteers to do 6 hourly measurements.

LCD sites measure differently because we've always had synoptic hour observations there. CoCoRaHS was created a decade ago. We don't ask volunteers to measure every 6 hours. Your measurement technique during the storm is fine. I don't decide what BOX keeps and what they don't. But I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying wait to measure in 24 hour increments. You can measure as often as you like without clearing, but you can only report the highest snowfall amount in that observation window (whether it's 6 or 24 hours). If we really want to get into semantics about what snowfall really is, it's the amount of snow that fell from first flake to last. So really we should measure when the event ends. The only real reason people argue about measurement techniques is not because they want to be accurate, it's because they want to have higher totals.

CoCoRaHS and coops are reporting new snowfall. And a fluff bomb that compacts as it falls, to Brian's point, isn't that just part of what happens to snow. We're not measuring every flake as it stacks up, we're measuring what people have to deal with. You guys asked what officially is new snowfall, and I gave the answer. It seems that some don't like the answer because it may take away a few inches at the end of the year. You're fine to clear the board every 6 hours, it won't be any different than a LCD site, but any more than that and you're not giving us a number comparable to the rest of our reports.

I honestly think you are exaggerating how much totals are inflated by measuring the greatest depth of new snow and measuring and clearing every 6 hours. If you went out every hour and measured new snow, reporting the greatest number you saw, but didn't clear the board until 24 hours your total is not going to be that far off 6 hour clearings. If rates are extreme and you stick a ruler in frequently enough, you'll capture a higher total before compaction. In fact that number may be higher than if you waited until the end of the 6 hour period to measure. Depth and new snow are fundamentally different. One is the amount on the ground, the other is what has accumulated on your snow board over the event. I'm not saying that we're looking for a report of the change in snow depth. We're looking for the greatest amount of new snow on your board over the course of the event.

You did. And I personally wouldn't have kicked your report out, but that can't be changed now. But I'm also not wrong about what the policy is. I realize that intense snow rates can really pile up when you shorten your clearing window, but intense snow rates will still pile up even if you aren't clearing the board. If you put a ruler in the ground every hour during 3"/hr snow rates, I guarantee you you'll get a decent total within a couple inches of clearing every 6 hours. If you aren't there to stick a ruler in on the board at that time that's bad luck, but it's totally within the rules for the coops. Most of our volunteers aren't dedicated snow weenies, they just like the weather, or do it because we ask their employers for assistance. If we could get everyone from AMWx to spread out across the CWA and do measurements for us we would do that, but alas nobody wants to live in Eustis year-round.

Kevin as the snow melts from all sides.

But that is the standard. We ask coops to measure as close to the end of snow as possible, since that is always the greatest depth of new snowfall. Of course people work and that's not always possible. Likewise, as you say if you get multiple events that each melt before the next one starts, you sum the totals.

Local Climatological Data Basically all your old Weather Surveillance Offices before they condensed them into WFOs (i.e. the Big Four BOS, PVD, BDL, ORH were all staffed by NWS or contractors at one point). Even that record isn't perfect though. We lost our AUG observer for snow about 10 years ago and have never found a replacement willing to do 6 hourly measurements.

It's not really confusing though. We pay LCD observers to take 6 hourly measurements, we ask coops to take 24 hourly measurements. Finding volunteers to take 4 observations a day just isn't feasible for the NWS. LCD sites have always had 6 hourly measurements because there were mets there taking obs for synoptic hours, we continue that practice for consistency. Coops have never been required to take 6 hourly obs, so the standard is 24 hours (greatest depth of new snow during that time whenever it is that they choose to measure). The standard is 24 hours, but some don't like that because it's less snow than if you did every 6 hours. If you choose to do 6 hours that's fine, but CoCoRaHS and coop guidance is pretty clear that it is the maximum depth of new snow in a 24 hour period.

Very emotional about snow measurement. My overall feelings are meh, it's not that important whether you do 24 and clear or every 6 and clear. If Ray called me with a report, I trust that he's being meticulous about it. I don't know who was working at BOX that day, but they didn't feel it was representative enough to include (or it just simply got lost in all the reports - it happens). But like I said you can stick your ruler on the board as many times and often as you like during a storm, you just can only report the maximum depth in that measurement period. So have at it before wind and compaction/melting takes place, that is still a valid ob. Even if you only clear it after 24 hours. Getting into semantics about what actually is fallen snow is silly though. I don't shovel un-compacted snow in the morning. The only argument for shorter intervals when it comes to impacts is for plowing. If you are trying to keep a road clear, then what's coming down hour by hour is important.

This event was literally out of your wildest dreams. Just your own private snow globe.

You got lucky, Terra had clouds but Aqua caught a glimpse.

It even looks a little bit like a

Officially, you are required to clear once per day and report the greatest depth of new snow. So theoretically you could measure as often as you like with no clearing, but you can only report the highest total amount. That way any inflation due to frequent measurement will ultimately compact/melt when you continue to get more snow (which replaces the previous measured total anyway). The real inflated totals come when you measure often and clear often. Alternatively I'm not going to chide anyone for clearing every 6 hours like LCD sites do. Think of a case like snow to rain. We run out and do a measurement right at changeover to capture the greatest depth of new snow in the 6 hour window, but we don't clear until the 6 hours is up and we do the official ob. But since the greatest depth of new snow was at the changeover time, that's the one that gets reported.