TL97 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Lessons from the storm: RAP, Hi-Res NAM, HRRR shouldn't be seriously used in winter storms. NAM needs to be taken with a grain of salt Euro remains the better model vs the GFS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amped Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-5-2001/storm-of-the-century-of-the-week---weather-predications From the Daily Show in 2001. Epic Colbert and Stewart used to look young. I'm gonna try taping a thermometer to a light bright and see if it works as well as Nexrad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Current radar shows a rainy mess across much of the Mid-Atlantic. While some locations across western Virginia have picked up nearly two feet, especially in higher elevations, this has been a very weak storm for the region, especially for DC given the predictions. And no, despite what happened last night (and the fact that I SHOULD for that reason), I am not here to gloat about being right. Winter weather is a hard thing to forecast. Moving on though... Philadelphia, Boston, New York are up for the snows next. Shouldn't be anything major. What a bust. But maybe there's hope...GFS ensembles through 16 days don't really indicate any permanent warmup: 1. Saying that you should be gloating, but claiming you aren't still counts as gloating. 2. You neither SHOULD nor COULD gloat about anything. Your forecast for DC was 4-6 inches of snow. That's a complete bust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amped Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Lessons from the storm: RAP, Hi-Res NAM, HRRR shouldn't be seriously used in winter storms. NAM needs to be taken with a grain of salt Euro remains the better model vs the GFS. Add this And This And This Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dallen7908 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 One of the possible lessons to me is to be careful about drastically changing the forecast based on one suite of model runs. The NWS gutsily had PG and AA county in a WWA yesterday afternoon despite some bullish model runs. They then upped my zone forecast from 2-4 plus possible additional snow this evening to 7-12 for the entire event. They went all-in and got humiliated. They always back away from storms slowly (they were the last to admit this storm was a bust), perhaps they should have continued to weight the past few model suites when putting together their final forecast. Another lesson is to view forecasts for record events with skepticism. I mean we all were skeptical (with the exception of TerpEast and a few others) but perhaps we need to give climatology a non-zero weight for even 6-12 hour forecasts. Finally, I'm still impressed that this storm was sniffed out 8 days ago. We've also had several clippers in the models 7 days out. I don't remember that happening much 5-10 years ago. The details were wrong but still an impressive feat (yes the devil is in ..) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clueless Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 He's back. Must have finished his homework. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacChump Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 1. Saying that you should be gloating, but claiming you aren't still counts as gloating. 2. You neither SHOULD nor COULD gloat about anything. Your forecast for DC was 4-6 inches of snow. That's a complete bust. waiting on the 5-7 in philly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hosj III Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Leave the kid alone. Seriously. All us old folk are getting worked up over nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdhokie Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Nam had the orientation of the precip all wrong. What happened down in RIC screwed everything up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amped Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Nam had the orientation of the precip all wrong. What happened down in RIC screwed everything up. Just to clear things up for those who think Richmond got 12". They got 1" . Midlo got rocked with 3-4", but so did Falls Church. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/validProds.php?prod=PNS&node=KAKQ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WEATHER53 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 What I used was my occurrent weather experiences dating back over 40 years. In all my observations I have never seen DCA receive more than 4" of snowfall within 24 hours of the temperature being >48* UNLESS a identifyable cold front passes throug first.. We were around 50 yesterday, the cold air dynamics were storm generated and not a result of a fresh push of cold air. The second issue was that the barometer was too low, <30.00 for most of the event is not good for DC. The first factor mostly, in conjunction with the second led me to make and stick to the staetments I made here yesterday. Zwyts is expeienced and open minded enough to mostly agree that DC weather can be forecasted accurately by using analog methods. There are times where the models do have a better handle then I do and I learn from that. But the "further north" storm of a couple years ago, the event 3 yrs back that I stated would be sleet and not the disaster freezing rainer that most were touting, and this one, show that for DC it's just plain difficult to get it right and that several methodologies will get you further than modelology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDstorm Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Perfect end to the winter for DC at least IMO. Couldn't have scripted it much better. Bob Chill might make it a movie. SNE still has to get their 12-18 inches....then the script would be complete. MDstorm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted March 6, 2013 Author Share Posted March 6, 2013 As bad as we feel, I feel even worse for the snow removal contractors. Talk about a gut punch. The last couple years for the plow business has been as profitable as our government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximum lawman Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Howdy from a former subforum member. Ian has come up twice in twitterfeed this week even though I don't follow any weather people on that account. Spooky. Anyway Mike DeBonis is complaining on twitter that the Capital weather guys blocked him. Aren't you guys on the same team? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipper Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Someone made this video of Justin Berk's twitter fails today: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastCoast NPZ Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Lessons from the storm: RAP, Hi-Res NAM, HRRR shouldn't be seriously used in winter storms. NAM needs to be taken with a grain of salt Euro remains the better model vs the GFS. NAM needs to be led downstairs and locked away in the basement from Oct 1 through Mar 31. Let it back upstairs come severe season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonickteam Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 that Berk video just made the whole storm bust thing OK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEOS5ftw Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 I think I may need to add another level of snow futility to my thread from a couple months ago for this one. This was no March 2001 but it is up there, compounded by the overall frustration of the past 2 years, and the completely incorrect last minute trend. It doesn't neatly fit into the existing categories either. I think the worst part was that radar looked great at times but I noticed the following: Even in the big bands, there were really only big flakes and visibility never really lowered to levels you need to get accumulation. Big flakes (esp when they are melting) look great to radar but you need lots of small ones also to really get accumulation. Not sure if the dynamics or thermal profiles caused this but was probably the reason for the seeming disconnect between radar presentation and snowfall rates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted March 6, 2013 Author Share Posted March 6, 2013 18z gfs pops a trailing low after the frontal passage next week. Only hour 147 too. Yea, the 850 line is up in ny and the +10 surface line runs through DC but with that track it should manufacture it's own cold air. ALL IN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terpeast Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 The lessons for me are: Climo, climo, climo Pay more attention to the Euro (reason I don't is that I don't have free access to it) Pay less attention to the NAM Look for a cold high or upper level confluence ahead of the storm, and their respective locations... If cold air is marginal or not there, that is a red flag esp in the shoulders of the winter season If models are stubborn about having surface temps stay >1 C on the soundings even during the heaviest precip, another red flag Don't forget about the bright band on radar, pay more attention to ground truth. If people say "radar looks better than what I see outside the window", something's wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris L Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 I feel sorry for in DC-BWI; I felt the same way in January 14, 2008; where forecasted was 12-15". I saw not even one flake in NE NJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris L Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 The lessons for me are: Climo, climo, climo Pay more attention to the Euro (reason I don't is that I don't have free access to it) Pay less attention to the NAM Look for a cold high or upper level confluence ahead of the storm, and their respective locations... If cold air is marginal or not there, that is a red flag esp in the shoulders of the winter season If models are stubborn about having surface temps stay >1 C on the soundings even during the heaviest precip, another red flag GGEM was showing the warm air, I believe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ji Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 I'm mad but not march 2001 mad. I saw 5 maybe 5.5 inches at peak and some good rates but low visibility was never there....no thunder...and the slush made it gross. Would of been much harder if grass was still green Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 I hope to never speak of this storm again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyewall Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Someone made this video of Justin Berk's twitter fails today: His response on FB: Here is the video I posted in my forecast article yesterday. The Canadian Model- the one I relied on most of the way - did show the rain today. I mentioned it clearly as a possibility but I abandoned that thinking. Clearly this is proving itself today. See it compared to the aggressive NAM model today. I actually 'did not' go with the heaviest snow. I was consistent with my call which was wrong for the metro area... When the storm ends, I will recap it with honesty, accountability (like I always do) and ask for your grades then. Yes, a bust in metro Baltimore/DC/Annapolis. But just west and north it was pretty close to what I mentioned even if just below the 6-10" range. There was over a foot in the mountains to the west. The Eastern Shore got exactly what was expected so far and the storm still has more to show tonight. So for the area I forecast, that bust covers about 30% of my forecast region. If you live in that part, that is all that matters and I understand that. But there is a complete story here. So how about we wait until the end before throwing stones, OK? *Anyone else I see writing racist attacks or using foul language will be reported like the others to FB and banned from this page. That is uncalled for and I take that more seriously than anything you can say about me. #Integrity! Trying to salvage what he can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 People are already spinning well. I think pretty much all low elevation spots underperformed. It wasn't quite as bad out west but getting 5" doesn't verify a 8-10+ call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Chill Posted March 6, 2013 Author Share Posted March 6, 2013 I hope to never speak of this storm again Me neither. I just ate a vinegar marinated lemon and it tasted sweet. That's not really a good sign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joc111 Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 CWG comments section is a nuclear wasteland. Good Lord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs.J Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 Silver lining... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 CWG comments section is a nuclear wasteland. Good Lord. Good to see DCAlexadria in the fray. He must be a teenager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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