Grade That Storm

[Tropopause_Fold]

I figured it might be a worthwhile exercise to keep track of how guidance performed on moderate/major systems through the winter. Could serve as a useful tool as we push deeper into the season and beyond. I'm hoping folks will add their thoughts/observations on how guidance handled each event. Perhaps we can just keep it as a running thread all winter, with someone (me?) just sort of delineating when one event's discussion ended, and a new one begins. That said:

This past event certainly showed it's fair share of model variability. The big winner was probably the EC ENS, followed by the EC. They were both quite consistent with the overall theme that the SLP would track west of New England. Anecdotally, I would say the UKMET had some serious troubles. It raised some weenie hopes when it produced a coastal bomb, passing near ACK. The GFS was its typical self. Overall, it was fairly steady, just gradually correcting toward the EC (though I'm sure there were some oddball runs in there). One aspect that I think the NCEP products handled well was the development of low pressure/precipitation along the SE/MA coastline. That weak system ended up verifying and helped to produce the overnight/early morning light SN/PL/ZR that fell in the interior. Kudos to the NAM/GFS for that aspect of the event as the ECMWF really got to the ballpark late on that subtle feature.

Thoughts from others?

[Damage In Tolland]

Nogaps IMO

[Tropopause_Fold]

Nogaps IMO

thanks. that helps.

[CoastalWx]

I figured it might be a worthwhile exercise to keep track of how guidance performed on moderate/major systems through the winter. Could serve as a useful tool as we push deeper into the season and beyond. I'm hoping folks will add their thoughts/observations on how guidance handled each event. Perhaps we can just keep it as a running thread all winter, with someone (me?) just sort of delineating when one event's discussion ended, and a new one begins. That said:

This past event certainly showed it's fair share of model variability. The big winner was probably the EC ENS, followed by the EC. They were both quite consistent with the overall theme that the SLP would track west of New England. Anecdotally, I would say the UKMET had some serious troubles. It raised some weenie hopes when it produced a coastal bomb, passing near ACK. The GFS was its typical self. Overall, it was fairly steady, just gradually correcting toward the EC (though I'm sure there were some oddball runs in there). One aspect that I think the NCEP products handled well was the development of low pressure/precipitation along the SE/MA coastline. That weak system ended up verifying and helped to produce the overnight/early morning light SN/PL/ZR that fell in the interior. Kudos to the NAM/GFS for that aspect of the event as the ECMWF really got to the ballpark late on that subtle feature.

Thoughts from others?

Yeah I agree with that...I think we even mentioned that a few days ago. It has that area of qpf from the LLJ moving north, along with the very weak low. Otherwise, I think overall the euro won...probably the EC ensembles like you said. The thing about the euro, is that it may not get the fine details totally correct, but it's dam consistent. I think consistency in models can't be argued enough...consistency is huge when it comes to forecasting.

[dryslot]

Euro, As it held steadfast once it locked on to the solution.........

[Organizing Low]

in my neck of the woods here

id say the EC/EC ensembles were the best way to go.

NAM struggled with the temp profiles, too cold here. all the models were too cold actually, but NAM was the worst.

as far as the globas overall rating

1. EC by a wide margin

2. GEM did not show epic HV blizzard ever like GFS did repeatedly

3. GFS

4. UKIe severe issues, didnt see what was going on until the last 12 hours

[ORH_wxman]

Obviously we can look at N Hemisphere scores, but that never gets the particular storm solution down...for the D3-5 time range, I'd grade this past lakes cutter as follows:

1. ECMWF...by a longshot. It went west and never really came back save for one run that made it as far east as a Hudson Valley runner...big win for the Euro on this storm.

2. GFS/GGEM, both seemed fairly close to providing occasional hope for a secondary, though I think the GGEM was probably a bit better in keeping the main forcing west.

4. UKMET....it can score some big coups occasionally, but this definitely wasn't one of them. Consistently too far east in this storm. It just wasn't their day on this one.

[Tropopause_Fold]

Obviously we can look at N Hemisphere scores, but that never gets the particular storm solution down...for the D3-5 time range, I'd grade this past lakes cutter as follows:

1. ECMWF...by a longshot. It went west and never really came back save for one run that made it as far east as a Hudson Valley runner...big win for the Euro on this storm.

2. GFS/GGEM, both seemed fairly close to providing occasional hope for a secondary, though I think the GGEM was probably a bit better in keeping the main forcing west.

4. UKMET....it can score some big coups occasionally, but this definitely wasn't one of them. Consistently too far east in this storm. It just wasn't their day on this one.

yeah that's kind of what i'm thinking with this thread. storm-by-storm.

i think down the road there could be some nice opportunities to dissect somethings more in-depth...ie...forcings, thermo profiles etc.

[Ginx snewx]

Lets save some maps here sitting at t minus 96 for verification, please add as I am not able to right now but will later, EURO GFS NAM UKMET< KOREAN JMA INTERNAL BALD GUY ETC

[Ginx snewx]

Lets save some maps here sitting at t minus 96 for verification, please add as I am not able to right now but will later, EURO GFS NAM UKMET< KOREAN JMA INTERNAL BALD GUY ETC

[Tropopause_Fold]

i wanted to bump this thread to get any input on the event that happened this past sun/mon (12/19-12/20)...i was a little pre-occupied so I can't say i followed it as well as i normally would have.

what i do know is this storm definitely played games with guidance right up until nowcast time.

we all know what happened with the EURO and the two runs that came way west and crushed NE. IIRC, removing those two hiccup runs would yield a pretty strong performance from the ECMWF...but alas we can't do that and we have to take note of the fact that it had two consecutive runs that broke strongly from continuity and were no where near the final result. incidentally, these two runs were also the ones that had people chest-bumping in anticipation of 3 feet of snow i believe, and praising the euro.

anyhow i think, and again i definitely missed some details this go around so please add/correct etc, the ec ens mean won this battle on the large scale synoptic stuff. it did tick west some when the op mistakenly did, but it wasn't nearly as gangbusters as its deterministic partner.

on the slightly more mesoscale aspect, the NAM probably deserves a little mention for being aggressive in getting precip back into SNE - though it was probably overly generous in too many runs.

would welcome some input on how people feel crazy uncle ukie did, the ggem, gfs etc as i just didn't have the time to watch each run as we got closer to go time with the baby being born...and i think my memory bank was partially erased.

[Ginx snewx]

The GFS did the best with the HECS with no SECS for Ray on 12/26 The MM 5 did best with QPF placement close in. NAM did well with dry slot placement. Euro was first to the party got cocked, passed out but came back last bringing crazy uncle Ukie and GGEM and baby brother RGEM with him along with that drama queen biiatch NOGAP.

[dryslot]

Nam with its western track and gfs for the qpf in close........