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Central PA & The Fringes - March 2014 Pt. I


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Eric Horst taking full blame for his blown forecast and calling out every forecaster that is blaming the models, saying they are not professionals.

Love it!

 

Yup. Said this on my page. 

 

For this storm we give ourselves a C+. We never had high amounts further north into PA and NY and knew the heaviest snow would be south. We just didn't get how far south till the day of the storm and the exact amounts were hit and miss. 

While our forecast wasn't as bad as others, we still busted in a lot of areas. We see lots of other people trying to blame their bad forecast on this or that, fact is, it was just a bad forecast. Models did shift way south yes, but maybe you shouldn't issue snow maps 3-4 days in advance. Even though our first call was a bit too far north at least we didn't have all of PA and into NY in 12"+ amounts like we seen others have. Even major weather outlets like AccuWeather had a map out with 12"+ for PA. If you want non-hyped forecast this is the place to come. We will continue to only issued first call maps inside 48hrs. Can't blame bad forecast on anyone but yourself. 

How do you think we did? We like your feedback.

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Eric Horst taking full blame for his blown forecast and calling out every forecaster that is blaming the models, saying they are not professionals.

Love it!

 

He's right. He's definitely the top forecaster for the LSV in my book. No offense meant towards the mets here, but Horst's entire career (going on 30 years) has been in this area and there is no substitute for experience.

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Wow hard to believe its still snowing hard in VA and MD while we're under totally sunny skies here in State College!  Next couple weeks still look active, definitely wouldn't write winter off yet.

 

Also... you guys who don't care for S&S... just saying there are probably better things you can be doing to make your point than constantly trolling their Facebook page

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Wow hard to believe its still snowing hard in VA and MD while we're under totally sunny skies here in State College!  Next couple weeks still look active, definitely wouldn't write winter off yet.

 

Also... you guys who don't care for S&S... just saying there are probably better things you can be doing to make your point than constantly trolling their Facebook page

 

They were far from the only ones way wrong on this one...

Anyone see the Weather World snow map on friday? They sure didnt get it correct either.

Now im not saying what they do is right but if the people who follow them cant see that they are a fraud then why care?

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Given our eventful winter, just wondering what effects we may see going forward. I know the golf course is going to be a mud bog once the snow is finally gone. What about the growing season, insects, pollen, weather tendencies, etc.?

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They were far from the only ones way wrong on this one...

Anyone see the Weather World snow map on friday? They sure didnt get it correct either.

Now im not saying what they do is right but if the people who follow them cant see that they are a fraud then why care?

 

True, the Euro and GFS had it deadlocked as a Central PA special, then in a few runs it slipped away...a lot. I'm done with the S and S stuff because obviously some people are dumb enough to buy into their nonsense. They have what's coming :)

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True, the Euro and GFS had it deadlocked as a Central PA special, then in a few runs it slipped away...a lot. I'm done with the S and S stuff because obviously some people are dumb enough to buy into their nonsense. They have what's coming :)

You got 10" from that storm not 9" correct?

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Let's go back through and name our favorite event. Mine hands down was the thump we got before Christmas...that unfortunately melted. Great storm I believe it was 12/14.

 

I think my personal favorite was the Feb 3 storm.

Got about 8 inches. Was a beautiful, very wet snow that stuck to everything.

Then we had the ice storm a couple days later that turned the snow to cement.

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Wow hard to believe its still snowing hard in VA and MD while we're under totally sunny skies here in State College!  Next couple weeks still look active, definitely wouldn't write winter off yet.

 

Also... you guys who don't care for S&S... just saying there are probably better things you can be doing to make your point than constantly trolling their Facebook page

 

 

They were far from the only ones way wrong on this one...

Anyone see the Weather World snow map on friday? They sure didnt get it correct either.

Now im not saying what they do is right but if the people who follow them cant see that they are a fraud then why care?

 

Yea people can blame this or that but at the end of the day the weather will do what it wants to do sometimes. I have no problem with saying I busted and didn't react enough to the red flags that I did see a couple days in advance. I knew our top end/big hitter potential (and the northern tier seeing decent snow) was in trouble when the models started to shear the storm out into a couple pieces, but I never thought the storm was going to get buried underneath PA cuz I bought into anticipating that late northern bump in precip with the progression of the arctic boundary getting hung up closer to PA. I also expected more out of the first wave, which did deliver a few inches of snow around and south of Pittsburgh, but broke up moving into central PA.. with the southern tier having mixing issues. And then of course with the main wave the reality ended up being the PV/arctic air shoving this all the way into a Mid-Atlantic/DC snowstorm (with a positive NAO to boot). To me that just shows how much we are still in the same dominant established cold pattern we've seen the majority of the winter.

 

Def glad I didn't try to throw out any kind of a first call map on Friday in the midst of the increasing uncertainty, and I still ended up too high and north when I tried to put one out Sunday morning right before the storm started. 

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Eric Horst taking full blame for his blown forecast and calling out every forecaster that is blaming the models, saying they are not professionals.

Love it!

The best forecasters will not shun the blame on others. The best will accept responsibility for a blown forecast and learn/move on from the experience.

Personally, I blew this forecast Sunday morning. I went to work knowing that guidance was split between a big storm for the southern counties, and virtually nothing (American models). By the time I left, I knew it was going to be way farther south, but it was too late for my shift. I've gotten plenty of hate from this storm, but knew that this winter full of storms would hold some surprises.

Eric is also in this camp. He is a real professional and knows that blaming everything around him is a bad choice, because a forecast comes down to his decision alone.

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At least it's always interesting!! Let's go back through and name our favorite event. Mine hands down was the thump we got before Christmas...that unfortunately melted. Great storm I believe it was 12/14.

By far the storm a few weeks back where we got a foot from the first batch, then the upper-low came through with thundersnow, forming a second band that put down another 5-6". I had never seen thundersnow and was on my weather bucket list (only remaining items are hurricane force winds and seeing a tornado). It was really a 1-2 punch that was just amazing to watch unfold. Tracking the lightning strikes in Virginia had Dr. John Scala and myself critically analyzing the radar and saying, "this is going to set up farther west", and sure enough it DID!

Amazing storm.

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The best forecasters will not shun the blame on others. The best will accept responsibility for a blown forecast and learn/move on from the experience.

Personally, I blew this forecast Sunday morning. I went to work knowing that guidance was split between a big storm for the southern counties, and virtually nothing (American models). By the time I left, I knew it was going to be way farther south, but it was too late for my shift. I've gotten plenty of hate from this storm, but knew that this winter full of storms would hold some surprises.

Eric is also in this camp. He is a real professional and knows that blaming everything around him is a bad choice, because a forecast comes down to his decision alone.

You were very conservative leading up to the storm as I said in a prior post. I respect that and many other mets this isn't the easiest of careers. What I don't like are those like S&S and others that hype and hype knowing the models are so split with a solution. This makes the rest of the meteorologically family look bad.
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My favorite event of the winter was the Feb 3rd event. We had 6.5 inches in Harrisburg from a storm that was largely expected to miss to our south until we got within 48 hours. Social media hype was kept to a minimum thanks to the Super Bowl.

 

The 2/13 storm was much less enjoyable for me despite being our biggest of the season. Most of the heavy stuff from round one fell while I was asleep. Then We waited all afternoon for round two only to watch the thunder snow death band pass just to our south and east.

 

I'm up for both more snow and spring. This dry cold can go away.

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Still 18 at MDT. It's amazing they might go all year without setting a record low despite all the cold. Tonight should be a record but it just won't drop it seems.

 

MDT has had a weird winter. Most people around here would consider this an "epic" winter, but it won't appear that way in the official record books.

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MDT has had a weird winter. Most people around here would consider this an "epic" winter, but it won't appear that way in the official record books.

 

I think Harrisburg was one of those places in central PA that missed the best snows to its south in a lot of storms, and therefore ended up with a more modest seasonal total. But around York and Lancaster, it's certainly been an epic winter, among the snowiest seasons on record.

 

EDIT: oops, missed the context and realized it was about cold :lol:

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MDT has had a weird winter. Most people around here would consider this an "epic" winter, but it won't appear that way in the official record books.

 

Its the same way up around here, unless we get a big one or two before winter finally relents seasonal snowfall is going to be above average but not ridiculously so. UNV needed this past event in the 108hr GFS/Euro form just to get up to a total that approaches the 02-03 and 03-04 winters. It has already passed the 09-10 winter total of 49.1" by a few inches at UNV though, and that winter's about in the ballpark of where I am here personally (65" in 09-10 vs right at 60" now). 

 

This winter is certainly gonna be remembered for it's cold. The winter pattern could have completely broke down a couple weeks ago and torched the rest of the way back after our last sizeable region-wide snowfall (Feb 18th) and it still would have been something memorable. The epic snow winters of the last 20 years have had their breaks in them, but this one has been downright relentless from the get go. 

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Walker hasn't reported since 8:23.

 

I was wondering about that.  I have 11.3F in my back yard about half a mile uphill.

 

Also, as MAG said, the story for this winter here is indeed the cold.  We have had (I believe) eight days with sub-zero temperatures this winter.  Looking it up, I count a total of seven in the previous 15 years I have lived here.

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