So what the hell happened with the GFS?

[MountainMet]

Same here...."hey what's the euro or gfs showing...." I turn around and ask how the hell they know what the models are, and it's because of the OCMs showing it. That's great if you discuss it two days out, but 5-6 days out...that's a joke.

+1. All of the sudden people are aware of this "euro" model and wonder why we aren't doing better. There is a whole new level of public awareness since Sandy.

I honestly think that all of the sudden there may be enough public pressure to do something about it. We all know that one party of Capitol Hill is more opposed to government spending on science (especially anything that could be labeled as "climate"). This is very disheartening to me. However..... Want to know what could get them to change their minds in a hurry? A burst of nationalist zeal upon learning that those European socialists are doing a better job that we are at forecasting our own weather! Imagine the injustice! USA! USA!

[CoastalWx]

+1. All of the sudden people are aware of this "euro" model and wonder why we aren't doing better. There is a whole new level of public awareness since Sandy.

I honestly think that all of the sudden there may be enough public pressure to do something about it. We all know that one party of Capitol Hill is more opposed to government spending on science (especially anything that could be labeled as "climate"). This is very disheartening to me. However..... Want to know what could get them to change their minds in a hurry? A burst of nationalist zeal upon learning that those European socialists are doing a better job that we are at forecasting our own weather! Imagine the injustice! USA! USA!

And again, I don't like how the news headlines make it sound like we are somehow becoming the Bangladesh NWS. The work going on by NCEP and ESRL regarding mesoscale modeling is awesome and thats only one example.

I mentioned this several times before that Debbie was on its way to producing $4.50 gallon gasoline if the Euro was right bringing a monster to Galveston. GFS did a fair job with that but nobody cares since the impact was minimal over nrn FL. It's not a garbage model, but it's had issues here locally inside 48 hrs.

[CapturedNature]

+1. All of the sudden people are aware of this "euro" model and wonder why we aren't doing better. There is a whole new level of public awareness since Sandy.

I honestly think that all of the sudden there may be enough public pressure to do something about it. We all know that one party of Capitol Hill is more opposed to government spending on science (especially anything that could be labeled as "climate"). This is very disheartening to me. However..... Want to know what could get them to change their minds in a hurry? A burst of nationalist zeal upon learning that those European socialists are doing a better job that we are at forecasting our own weather! Imagine the injustice! USA! USA!

 

Being a member of "that party", I've never met a fellow member opposed to intelligent spending.  Maybe against misappropriation of dollars, but this is not the place for that discussion.  Like another poster said, maybe were spending too much on forecasting the climate 100 years from now instead of tomorrow and the next day.

 

One thing that is for sure is that there is more public awareness of the different models and how OCMs have a love affair with the ECMWF and now expect to know the full details of any upcoming storm 5 days out. Not only do I get the questions about what the "American" or "Euro" is showing but now I'm being asked about storms even earlier.  Questions started today about Saturday and next week in my office - argh!

 

BTW, isn't the ECMWF a for-profit entity?

[weathafella]

Which is the whole problem with this thread. Just because it didn't perform well in YBY doesn't mean it doesn't perform well in, e.g. Chicago or Philadelphia.

Look, I get your point. But if it fails in mby....what the fuk good is it? The weather I experience is in mby.

[Bostonseminole]

Look, I get your point. But if it fails in mby....what the fuk good is it? The weather I experience is in mby.

 

good point.

[OceanStWx]

A good example as using it as guidance was the Feb blizzard. While it was not 100% correct, it did have the idea of being more progressive than the euro. So, putting that into account...a dam good forecast could be made. The euro does have a nice bias of trying to hook back bombing lows a little too much.

 

And trust me, I would love for the euro to have a bad streak because everyone is praising it and it makes all the good stuff that NCEP does seem non-existent.

 

When (not if) that happens it's going to lead to some poor forecasting. It's never a good idea to blindly follow any one model, but I feel this recent stretch had led to some ECMWF sheep out there.

 

I'll say this about the GFS, it performed very well in the medium range up here during the progressive January pattern. It was doing better than the Euro for stretches at D3-4...at least up here.

 

However, that said, the GFS is the biggest joke when it comes to short term in this area during E.C. cyclogenesis. That's why it gets a bad rap from many forecasters here. Its nice when its predicting 20F and sunny accurately or predicted the hemispheric heights almost as well as the Euro at D3, but when you really need it to come through in crunch time, its been terrible. Perhaps it has been nailing forecasts off to the southwest of here during significant storms, but that has been far from the case in New England. It has been awful in 3 major storms this season (Dec 26-27, Feb 8-9, Mar 7-8) inside of 48 hours in this region and that is not what the reputation has been built on either. It was awful for much of 2010-2011 as well with the big exception being Boxing Day where it performed excellent.  

 

Most models have strengths and weaknesses. The NAM is great at convection, but sucks at QPF in synoptic storms. Perhaps the GFS weakness is major coastal cyclogensis near New England. That's a crappy weakness to have when trying to be a reliable forecasting tool in the winter as a New England met...so its very easy to see where the hostility towards it comes from when talking specifically about this region.

 

It's entirely possible that this is a developing bias due to recent upgrades or whatever reason, but we'll need a larger database to be sure. In that respect it would be no different than the ECMWF's bias of lagging southwestern U.S. shortwaves. After all, this is why we're paid to do what we do. Hash out the NWP differences and decide which blend of solutions is most correct.