2nd half of April, general forecast ideas and banter

[ORH_wxman]

Euro has a potential snow event at the end of the run. That would be pretty funny.

[CT Rain]

Furloughs at the NWS.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/04/15/furloughs-proposed-for-national-weather-service-noaa/

 

 

ugh

[OceanStWx]

Furloughs at the NWS.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/04/15/furloughs-proposed-for-national-weather-service-noaa/

 

 

ugh

 

Honestly, off all things that happened yesterday, my day could have been a lot worse. I hate to see it, but also find it very hard to complain when all of my family and friends made it safely home yesterday.

 

However, it seems plans are in the works and they're going to try and push this through. The irony being that we're heading into the busiest time of the year for WFOs when the bulk of OT is earned due to severe outbreaks and tropical systems. I'm assuming a furloughed employee will not be eligible to come in and work OT if needed, so we would directly handicapping the mission of protecting lives and property by having fewer options to work busy events.

[CT Rain]

Honestly, off all things that happened yesterday, my day could have been a lot worse. I hate to see it, but also find it very hard to complain when all of my family and friends made it safely home yesterday.

 

However, it seems plans are in the works and they're going to try and push this through. The irony being that we're heading into the busiest time of the year for WFOs when the bulk of OT is earned due to severe outbreaks and tropical systems. I'm assuming a furloughed employee will not be eligible to come in and work OT if needed, so we would directly handicapping the mission of protecting lives and property by having fewer options to work busy events.

 

Yeah it's really a shame about the furloughs during the coming time of year. What will the future be with more budget cuts? I could see a time where the day-to-day forecasting is more automated and all resource are really put into impact based forecasting and coordination with EM/media on high impact events and warnings? 

[OceanStWx]

Yeah it's really a shame about the furloughs during the coming time of year. What will the future be with more budget cuts? I could see a time where the day-to-day forecasting is more automated and all resource are really put into impact based forecasting and coordination with EM/media on high impact events and warnings? 

 

There are certainly steps being made that take us in that direction, especially when it comes to the long term portion of the forecast. Unfortunately, that just means we're admitting that dumping and running with model guidance (even a scientific blend) is good enough for the public. We'll get burned by it eventually, most likely from over-preparing for threats that don't materialize (as that is more common than the monster that surprises everyone).

 

I fear the day they start reducing the number of WFOs and increasing the areas of responsibility for fewer and fewer forecasters. We know that forecasts degrade when that happens, but the higher ups are willing to accept it to save a few pennies in the grand scheme of things.

[OceanStWx]

And this news comes down, yet countless employees are going to put in long days tomorrow at OUN, TSA, ICT, SGF, and so on.

 

Once again NOAA will not look good if tomorrow ends up being as big a day as the day 3 moderate risk suggests it will be.

[CoastalWx]

There are certainly steps being made that take us in that direction, especially when it comes to the long term portion of the forecast. Unfortunately, that just means we're admitting that dumping and running with model guidance (even a scientific blend) is good enough for the public. We'll get burned by it eventually, most likely from over-preparing for threats that don't materialize (as that is more common than the monster that surprises everyone).

 

I fear the day they start reducing the number of WFOs and increasing the areas of responsibility for fewer and fewer forecasters. We know that forecasts degrade when that happens, but the higher ups are willing to accept it to save a few pennies in the grand scheme of things.

 

Don't worry, only 20 million dollars will be spent by the government to see if chimps can drive cars, as opposed to 40 million so the cuts hit all around.

[CT Rain]

There are certainly steps being made that take us in that direction, especially when it comes to the long term portion of the forecast. Unfortunately, that just means we're admitting that dumping and running with model guidance (even a scientific blend) is good enough for the public. We'll get burned by it eventually, most likely from over-preparing for threats that don't materialize (as that is more common than the monster that surprises everyone).

 

I fear the day they start reducing the number of WFOs and increasing the areas of responsibility for fewer and fewer forecasters. We know that forecasts degrade when that happens, but the higher ups are willing to accept it to save a few pennies in the grand scheme of things.

 

I'd rather see double the resources on a storm and no resources on the current D1-D7 forecast with little/no impact in terms of sensible weather. How you do that... I don't know. 

 

Once you start consolidating offices the service will degrade. There's no question. Hard to coordinate with local media, emergency managers, etc when you're no longer local. The local offices as they are now do the best they can and work pretty well. It would be a shame to lose that. 

[OceanStWx]

Don't worry, only 20 million dollars will be spent by the government to see if chimps can drive cars, as opposed to 40 million so the cuts hit all around.

 

Well those chimps will be doing the forecast before long.

[OceanStWx]

I'd rather see double the resources on a storm and no resources on the current D1-D7 forecast with little/no impact in terms of sensible weather. How you do that... I don't know. 

 

Once you start consolidating offices the service will degrade. There's no question. Hard to coordinate with local media, emergency managers, etc when you're no longer local. The local offices as they are now do the best they can and work pretty well. It would be a shame to lose that. 

 

Of course once you take the forecaster out of the forecast process, the situational awareness of the event becomes degraded as well. There is something to be said for tracking a storm for several days (as many from this board will understand). If you're always in the short term, these subtle changes become lost.

[CT Rain]

Of course once you take the forecaster out of the forecast process, the situational awareness of the event becomes degraded as well. There is something to be said for tracking a storm for several days (as many from this board will understand). If you're always in the short term, these subtle changes become lost.

 

Yup... no easy solution here. Consolidation of offices would really be bad news - hopefully we don't go down that road again like we did a few years back when that was floated.

[Damage In Tolland]

I can always help out with forecasts

[N. OF PIKE]

I can always help out with forecasts

the nhc will no longer have access to euro data but they do have a contract w the kfs/ kuro . "Higher than normal lesco concentrations are once again present and the cause for kuro's continuation of horrible initialization errors" i can imagine it now

[Baroclinic Zone]

Low of 31F.  Up to low/mid 50s already.

[N. OF PIKE]

Today wx wise is close to a ten

[Damage In Tolland]

Today wx wise is close to a ten

Will you tan a little on the roof?

[Baroclinic Zone]

Impressive, already up to 59F.

[Typhoon Tip]

Yup... no easy solution here. Consolidation of offices would really be bad news - hopefully we don't go down that road again like we did a few years back when that was floated.

 

It's probably a bit of a boring sociological discussion point ... but, the world is changing, FAST!   At some point the infusion of new technologies -- hell, I was just reading an article about "Suburban drones", small mosquito -sized robotic spy drones approved for testing by the government (disturbing) -- are going to change the way humanity operates.  It's just unavoidable.  Otherwise, innovation and technological evolution would halt.  So long as there is imagination -vs- protagonists to the ability to survive, technology will continue to evolve.   Moore's Law ...etc, etc...etc.   But the application of ever more exotic and advanced technologies is going to change society; consolidating weather offices is just one among many casualties along the course of technological evolution.   

 

It may be Science Fiction at the moment, but one day in the future it won't be;   the "vagaries" of the weather will be a thing of the past.   Imagine that?  

[Typhoon Tip]

There's kind of an interesting feed-back loop going on out there in the environment....  I am noticing we cannot seem to keep the lows above 40F most locations, and this is stymied the soil warm up and is (perhaps) effecting the timing of green-up to some extent.  We need higher DPs.    It's allowing nights to radiate downward, cooling the soil temps, thus stymies the green-up, which would otherwise be a theta-e source that would keep the nightly temps above 40.  

 

Either that ... or change the damn weather pattern.  Lord!  

[CoastalWx]

There's kind of an interesting feed-back loop going on out there in the environment....  I am noticing we cannot seem to keep the lows above 40F most locations, and this is stymied the soil warm up and is (perhaps) effecting the timing of green-up to some extent.  We need higher DPs.    It's allowing nights to radiate downward, cooling the soil temps, thus stymies the green-up, which would otherwise be a theta-e source that would keep the nightly temps above 40.  

 

Either that ... or change the damn weather pattern.  Lord!  

 

I wonder what effect the snow and wet sois will have in the nrn Plains going forward?

[Damage In Tolland]

I wonder what effect the snow and wet sois will have in the nrn Plains going forward?

Summer of 1816?

[ORH_wxman]

I wonder what effect the snow and wet sois will have in the nrn Plains going forward?

 

 

Snowpack until May in those parts. Unbelievable April they have been having.

 

 

Fargo's coldest April on record is an avg temp of 33.5F in 1950...right now they are at 28.9F. Granted, the 2nd half of April's average temps will always be warmer than the first half, but they need to average over 38F for the 2nd half of the month to avoid having their all time coldest April on record. Given that even their highs are going to struggle to reach 38F over the next 7-10 days, I'm thinking they have a great shot at smashing the old record.

[tamarack]

 

Today wx wise is close to a ten

So was yesterday, even better IMO despite its frosty 21F low. Yesterday's breeze made seeding and liming (with woodstove ash) the logyard from last winter's harvest a challenge. Today's wind would've made it impossible. (The yard is too rough and, in places, too soft to run a spreader, so the "toss method" was in play.)

[CoastalWx]

Snowpack until May in those parts. Unbelievable April they have been having.

 

 

Fargo's coldest April on record is an avg temp of 33.5F in 1950...right now they are at 28.9F. Granted, the 2nd half of April's average temps will always be warmer than the first half, but they need to average over 38F for the 2nd half of the month to avoid having their all time coldest April on record. Given that even their highs are going to struggle to reach 38F over the next 7-10 days, I'm thinking they have a great shot at smashing the old record.

 

It really is incredible...I was looking at the depatures from March 1st until now...and it's truly remarkable. Add another blizz coming up this week.

[Typhoon Tip]

I wonder what effect the snow and wet sois will have in the nrn Plains going forward?

 

HA!  No kidding -- the guidance' et al are also hell-bent on drilling another snow storm up there, too.   But, living in the GL growing up ... where there are lots of corn farmers in southern lower Michigan, snow in April was always referred to as "Farmer's Gold" -- another saying is the poor man's fertilizer.   The reason why is, if the ground thaws, then there is a blue bomb, that dense snow holds massive quantities of nitrogen, which then is successfully absorbed because the ground isn't truly frozen any longer.  Otherwise, it would melt and run off and be wasted.   

 

It may actually help the growing season.  

 

But, it can't last forever.   May and ultimately June are coming.  If it's doing this in June, I'd have say that there is a real climate catastrophe underway.

[Typhoon Tip]

hahaha - look at that classic CCB snow head out there.... wow

 

[Typhoon Tip]

The other thing that is really remarkable is just the areal expanse N that is inundated by cold thickness.  Usually we see that beginning to normalize by now but there is a lot of cold.  

[Typhoon Tip]

Actually that may not be true ... what I just said.  I am under that impression but it may be false.  I am just not sure what the anomalies are at this very moment -- but they SEEM cold.   According to GISS, March was overwhelmingly warm up N

 

[Typhoon Tip]

Euro has a potential snow event at the end of the run. That would be pretty funny.

 

 

It wouldn't shock me, actually.   Either that or one helluva miserable pattern for a stint.  I mentioned this at the thread start but that last week of the month has a cold signal in there -- although the GFS and Euro ensemble derived indexes from last night backed off a little.  We'll see.

[ORH_wxman]

 

Actually that may not be true ... what I just said.  I am under that impression but it may be false.  I am just not sure what the anomalies are at this very moment -- but they SEEM cold.   According to GISS, March was overwhelmingly warm up N

 

 

Its been very cold in April throughout a lot of Canada