GaWx

Ready or not it is now evident that either a major SSW or a very early FW is very likely on the way within ~10 days. This (today’s Euro Weeklies) shows ~95 of 100 members reversing by Mar 14th. The mean gets way down to -10 on 3/14. Today’s has the strongest signal yet. This would be consistent with Joe D’Aleo’s study showing a strong tendency for a major SSW during +QBO/strong winter solar. Solar for DJF came out to ~148: *Edit: there’s no indication this will lead to increased snow. There’s always some chance this kind of thing will lead to BN temps in 15+ days. But as of now the models don’t even show that. Even if it were to do so, that may not mean much, if any, snow for the NE US since it will be so late in the season. @snowman19 Kudos to @40/70 Benchmarkfor predicting this for some point in the late season with confidence.

New Euro Weeklies: mild to warm Mar 10th through Apr 14th

Here’s the 12Z Euro snowfall at 10:1 through the same time:

Yesterday’s Euro Weeklies and 0Z extended GEFS (today’s not out yet) actually had the highest chances yet of any of these runs for a mid-Mar major SSW or FW fwiw:

As you know the Euro op day 11 is of little value other than entertainment and it often changes substantially from run to run, regardless. But mountain upslope snow around this time wouldn’t be surprising.

But at least he’s against the massive firings of the non-climate science portion of NOAA. I wasn’t so sure he was going to say that. I thought he was either going to say nothing or defend all of the firings due to political leanings.

What about El Niños of 1994-5 and 2014-5?

Does anyone who isn’t a WxBell subscriber want to guess what Joe Bastardi just said about the NOAA firings?

At another site’s forum I posted the above tweet. A knowledgeable pro met there responded to me: “Something doesn't add up here because Alaska has been expanding AUTOMATED balloon launches across the state that don't require humans. This sounds like it could be part of that project. NOAA adopts technology to automate weather balloon launches Demonstration project underway as Alaska receives first autolaunch stations” My comment: This link dates way back to 5/7/2018: https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-adopts-technology-to-automate-weather-balloon-launches After nearly two years of field testing the technology in Kodiak, NWS has initiated a demonstration of autolaunchers in Alaska, with two of the state’s 13 upper-air sites already using them. Annette, Alaska, will receive an autolaunch system this month, and the technology will be installed across the state’s remaining 10 sites over the next two years.”

Who hired Musk to do this?

From something I just read elsewhere, the impact of this may be the US models not running when there’s an outage and thus having to rely on foreign global models. I assume this may mean no short term models run other than RGEM til the outage is fixed. We need more info to decipher exactly what this would actually mean for the US models.

What does “at NOAA’s EMC responsible for keeping all US weather model systems running” mean specifically? Does this mean instead of humans operating the computers that the models would just run automatically? I kind of thought they pretty much already did. If so, is it possible that this change would be a legit way to increase efficiency without decreasing what NOAA provides to the public? I’m trying to keep an open mind to some cuts as long as they wouldn’t undermine the services provided. Even if so, the one hour notice seems awfully abrupt!

1. Did this actually occur today or is this from another day? 2. What is the meaning of “probationary” federal employees? 3. What does “at NOAA’s EMC responsible for keeping all US weather model systems running” mean specifically? Does this mean instead of humans operating the computers that the models would just run automatically? I kind of thought they pretty much already did. If so, is it possible that this change would be a legit way to increase efficiency without decreasing what NOAA provides to the public? Even if so, the one hour notice seems awfully abrupt!

The good news is that it hasn’t actually occurred yet. With enough pushback/protest from Levi and others, hopefully that would make a difference and keep cuts, if any, reasonable. Silence would be the worst thing because it implies being ok with big cuts.

Nothing specific yet. The purpose of Levi’s tweet is to provide pushback and encourage others to push back. The more pushback/protests, the lower the chance for massive cuts. The worst thing would be silence. Silence is often deemed to be equivalent to being ok with an action. Edit: Of course as wx enthusiasts, most of us are probably going to be biased against cuts.

This from Dr. Levi Cowan: In the tweet below he said: “My personal mission to bring hurricane science, data, and forecasts to the public would not be possible without the weather observations, doppler radar stations, computer models, hurricane hunter aircraft, and weather satellites provided by NOAA and the NWS. Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breathe it to synthesize it into public safety information. All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year, and surveys show most would be willing to pay much more. The American weather enterprise saves many, many times more money than it costs to run, making it one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the government. The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters. Most importantly, it saves priceless lives. Careful, long-term plans to streamline or reorient the weather enterprise in an evolving world are not bad, but *this plan* is insane. A feverish rush to take a cleaver to this workforce is self-destructive and dangerous to Americans who rely on the services they provide.” ————————— My comments: Massive cuts to the life-saving, very efficiently run NWS/NOAA would be very stupid and dangerous imho. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail! Edit: Of course as wx enthusiasts, most of us are probably going to be biased against cuts.

This from Dr. Levi Cowan: In the tweet below he said: “My personal mission to bring hurricane science, data, and forecasts to the public would not be possible without the weather observations, doppler radar stations, computer models, hurricane hunter aircraft, and weather satellites provided by NOAA and the NWS. Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breathe it to synthesize it into public safety information. All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year, and surveys show most would be willing to pay much more. The American weather enterprise saves many, many times more money than it costs to run, making it one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the government. The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters. Most importantly, it saves priceless lives. Careful, long-term plans to streamline or reorient the weather enterprise in an evolving world are not bad, but *this plan* is insane. A feverish rush to take a cleaver to this workforce is self-destructive and dangerous to Americans who rely on the services they provide.” ————————— My comments: Massive cuts to the life-saving, very efficiently run NWS/NOAA would be very stupid and dangerous imho. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail! Edit: Of course as wx enthusiasts, most of us are probably going to be biased against cuts.

Levi also said this: “My personal mission to bring hurricane science, data, and forecasts to the public would not be possible without the weather observations, doppler radar stations, computer models, hurricane hunter aircraft, and weather satellites provided by NOAA and the NWS. Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breathe it to synthesize it into public safety information. All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year, and surveys show most would be willing to pay much more. The American weather enterprise saves many, many times more money than it costs to run, making it one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the government. The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters. Most importantly, it saves priceless lives. Careful, long-term plans to streamline or reorient the weather enterprise in an evolving world are not bad, but *this plan* is insane. A feverish rush to take a cleaver to this workforce is self-destructive and dangerous to Americans who rely on the services they provide.” ————————— Massive cuts to the life-saving, very efficiently run NWS/NOAA would be very stupid and dangerous imho. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail!

Go to the bottom at this link for 1990-1 through 2022-3: http://arctic.som.ou.edu/tburg/products/realtime/strat/

Indeed, there are plenty of exceptions. Though it was a major SSW (a reversal that wasn’t a FW), this one (3/24/2010) was a very weak and short reversal and late enough so that it was only ~12 m/s BN at the low point:

RDU normal high is only 61 on Mar 10th. The actual WB GFS output shows a high on that day of only 38. That’s 13-14 below the mid Jan normal highs! Of course it won’t be on the next run, regardless. https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=rah Edit: Record low high is 38. There have been 2 measurable snows on 3/10. One had 8”!! That day’s high was 40. The other day with measurable snow had a high of 42. Thus, this cold of an airmass could easily be cold enough to produce snow with the right storm track. Update: Not unexpectedly, the 0Z GFS had nothing of the sort.

Thank you! Ironically, Holy Barney! Mainly for entertainment since it is out in fantasyland on the potentially drunk Happy Hour run: GFS has winter briefly return Mar 10-12 with temps BN even vs midwinter normals including hard freezes for most well inland locations and freezes almost down to Hogtown, FL! Even daytime highs are cold with upper 30s to 40s for many. This is from a rapidly plunging Arctic high. It will very likely not be anywhere near this cold then on the next run. So, enjoy it while it is showing up. Barney says “Hey boys and girls!” Does Barney drink?