OceanStWx

GEFS are a bit underdispersive, meaning the ensemble will tend to move as one too often. Ideally you would have a lot of different solutions and the ensemble spread would include the correct one. So if the op loses it, I'm not surprised when the GEFS does too.

Gotta watch those ones brewed with lactose.

I wish I had more runs of the EPS to look at but IAD mean snowfall went from 2 to 6 inches in 18 hours.

Euro initializing?

Nice conflicting signals tonight as sonde data comes in. Both the northern stream and the southern stream are deeper than 12z guidance forecast. Conflicting because ensemble sensitivity suggested that you wanted a deeper southern stream/weaker northern stream to produce a stronger/farther west system for Monday. So then the question becomes which feature do we believe dominates. I'm personally leaning that the northern stream is going to "cap" just how much room this one has to sneak north. If we can't give ridging enough room to flex ahead of the southern stream that pretty well limits potential.

The states like to have their own individual maps when they go to the website. We grab CAR's forecast to stitch into our western Maine forecast for the Maine map.

You can hear the snow melting.

My salads too.

Just perfect snowfall out there right now. Real efficient inch over the last hour.

You would be surprised. I have two 4x6s and it was a handful keeping up with the beans and squash. I tried doing everything by seed this past season and I definitely had similar tomato/pepper issues. Also notice the carrots were pretty small. I ended up buying pepper plants and those did great, my tomato finally popped around August and we got a handful of fruit, but I think that may have been shaded by the beans by then. The kale/broccoli gets destroyed by caterpillars.

Ideally a good ensemble will make sure that the ultimate result falls within the ensemble forecast goalposts, not smooth out the errors. You actually want those errors to compound and lead to different solutions because we know the model is going to have those errors from the observed atmosphere anyway. Median heights? No, but there are median values for other variables. I also think some of the clustering analysis gets closer to median solutions too.

3.3” up here by the Presumpscot. Managing to claw our way to a slightly below normal December. You’ve had several inches more than me though so the Jetport might squeak out normal.

CC definitely collapsing towards KBOX more rapidly now in the last half hour.

I'm just looking through the METARs from ORH for 2008 () and there are some classic WTF ones in there. KORH 120254Z AUTO 05012G19KT 2 1/2SM FZRA BR OVC001 M01/M01 A2982 RMK AO2 CIG 001V006 SLP110 P0021 60038 T10061011 56039 Ripping off 0.21" FZRA in an hour, gusting to 19 kt. Within 2 hours the ASOS shit the bed as it ticked off another 0.18" in an hour. Kind of wish those ice sensors were up and running then.

You probably aren't wrong there. So much ice research was from the central CONUS, where shallow cold outbreaks lead to ice storms. Those tend to bleed down the valleys as opposed to our active damming events that maximize cold in that 950 mb zone. All you have to do is dig through StormData and see all the big ice reports are always at elevation and always on the northeast side of town.

Big triple bun ice energy in here tonight.

I feel like a ton of ice research has come out since then proving that stronger winds are in fact a net benefit to ice accretion. I think sheltered from winds, but there is also some subtle cooling on the east side as air ascends over the terrain and even a wet bulb temp change of 0.5 degrees can matter a lot.

FRAM documentation sort of covers that too, with warm rain drops being less efficient but not captured by the algorithm. One of those situations where a stronger wind (like 2008) actually helps you by transporting the latent heat away from the drops as they freeze.

It's a pretty good explainer, and most likely what you are seeing from any NWS office forecast. It does a pretty good job, mostly missing on the low side with light precip and strong winds or high side with wet bulb temps near freezing.

Depends primarily on rate, wind, and temp. Each ice ratio curve is a little different. Heavier QPF = less ice (runs off too fast), stronger wind = more ice (actually builds up faster), temps near freezing = less ice (obviously). For low wind, standard upper 20s temps and typical precip rate you can assume around 80% of QPF turns into flat ice (take 40% of that for radial).

Hahd ah?

Your dewpoint should stay at or below freezing, so damage is minimized.

Well we have those here too...

Flew to Puerto Rico on Christmas Day a few years back, and did my semester in Hawaii starting just after New Year's Day. Palm tress and Christmas lights go great together. Heavy, heavy rum drinks.